One Fine Day
by QueenAnne
Summary: One Fine Day/You'll look at me/And you will know our love was/Meant to be--Trory
1. Daydream Believer

*Author's Note * Okay, guys, I'm back--and this is just a random thing that I started last night. Don't blame me if you don't like it...although I hope you do. I'm not done with it, and honestly I don't know where to go with it, exactly, but I just had to write it down. Isn't that what all of us do anyway? Randomly write down stuff that's in our brains so that it doesn't drive us crazy? ...or maybe it's just me = ) Anyway, please, review. (But don't pull that 'constructive criticism' crap--there's never anything constructive about criticism) Also, if you have any ideas of where I should take this, they're always welcome! Anyway, it's really short, I know, but read on...if you will!--Annest *  
  
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Rory leaned her head into the cradle of her hands and sighed. A strand of long, chestnut hair fell into her face from its precarious placement behind her ear, and she blew it gently up and away from its position on her nose. Tristan, getting up on his knees, turned around in his seat.  
"Daydreaming about me, Rory?" he asked with a grin, running long fingers through his hair.  
"Yes, Tristan," the twenty-seven year-old answered slyly. "I'm daydreaming about you. All the while being very--I emphasize very--grateful that the airline mixup meant that we don't have seats next to each other. Now...can I go back to my magazine?"  
"Well of course you can, Ms. Gilmore. But tell me one thing first?" Rory nodded with a patronizing frown.  
"You're welcome to go back to your magazine, Rory...but how do you plan to do that if your magazine is sticking out of your carry-on?" Tristan threw a casual glance to the black attache that sat three seats away from Rory in the empty row. She grinned sheepishly, a break that Tristan often saw when they were all alone.   
"Come on then, Tristan," Rory consented, rolling her sparkling eyes. She, too, nodded to the empty row in which she sat. "Come sit by me." Tristan, in his charcoal-gray pinstripe, practically jumped over the seat to sit next to his traveling companion. "Could you be any more of a child, Tristan? Next thing I know, you'll be begging me for candy!"   
A familiar gleam came into Tristan's still-breathtaking blue eyes. "Rooooory," he dragged her name out huskily, leaned in to her. "Gimme some candy," Tristan said on a growl. Rory flushed and leaned as far away as she could, before she ran into the wall of the plane.   
"I don't have any, Tristan. And stop the banter. There are other people on this plane, you know," Rory told him.  
"Oh...do you think they have any candy?" he asked her with a grin.  
"Tristan..." Rory said, laughing, and she was glad that the tension was once again broken. He leaned back into his seat, and their elbows brushed and then rested against each other. Rory wondered silently if he noticed the electric contact that she had--she looked over--perhaps he had--  
His eyes were closed. He even looked like a little boy. Rory smiled in spite of herself. But her mind wandered to much more than what he looked like. Though God knew she thought about that enough, she told herself with a grin.  
Lately...Rory couldn't exactly put her finger on it. Their job took them places, every place, any place. Work that neither of them expected to go into was something they ended up in simultaneously. At twenty-seven and twenty-eight, respectively, Rory and Tristan were both well-respected businesspeople. Rory's Harvard studies in communications and Tristan's Yale degree in marketing had brought them together at their annual Chilton reunion a year after graduation from college. Tristan unexpectedly showed up at Rory's house, thankfully not waking Lorelei and Luke, but only Rory, to whom he presented a somewhat-odd proposition; a joint marketing venture in Boston. Rory was, at first, reluctant. She and Tristan sat on her porch all night, until four in the morning when finally he crashed on the couch and she in the bed. They had agreed to go into business together.  
No one would have thought that Rory and Tristan could go into business together, without killing each other in the process. Not to mention a highly-sucessful one that already emplyed 30+ employees. Their travels were often together...car trips up to New York, frequent flights to Chicago and Toronto, and the occasional "red-eyes" to London, Paris or L.A. Tristan and Rory's family connections meant that a number of national and international companies relied on their marketing and communications work for many campaigns and problems.   
But it was lately, as she had been thinking....lately, she and Tristan had been traveling more than usual, and their main communication with the "home office" was via video phone, cells, email and fax. Their banter was more frequent, and far more innuendo-laden then even Rory remembered it being back in high school, at Chilton. Many times she and Tristan had shared after dinner drinks in a hotel room, or the lounge; many nights had she slept against his shoulder on the plane, and visa versa. Rory just wasn't sure what her feeling was when their conversations turned in that direction. She sighed, and Tristan stirred next to her.  
"Daydreaming again, Rory?" he asked sleepily, his tousled hair more so than usual. She smiled weakly at his just-out-of-bed grin, and her heart pounded inexplicably.  
"I don't know what I'm doing, Tristan." He nodded absently and dozed off again, laying his blonde head down on her shoulder. Rory, a puzzled look on her face, merely gazed with unseeing eyes out of the plane window. 


	2. On foot massages and shared hotel rooms

*Author's Note * Yes, I'm back for a second chapter. Thank you guys so-oh-oh much for your awesome reviews! Mm...I loooove reviews! = ) Anyhow, hope this one is up to par. It's really short....or is to me. I'm sorry...but it seemed like an okay place to end it for now. I'll try and get more up, soon, but I'm seriously in the middle of Grease! and English 3 (Whoever said House of the Spirits was a quick read was sadly mistaken) However, I WILL try! And once again....reviews, and if you have an idea of where in the WORLD I should take this....do tell! * --Annest  
  
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"Phew!" Rory breathed a sigh of relief, briskly walking down the hall of Craig and Jennings, the firm to whom she and Tristan had just presented their market findings. "I never ever thought it would last that long. Two hours...that's crazy!" She looked sympathetically at her feet. "Look! I can practically HEAR the poor things crying out!"  
Tristan rolled his eyes patronizingly. "Yes, Rory, I can too. Listen...'Rory! Rory!'" he mimicked in a mocking falsetto. "'Rory! Come and help us! Take these shoes off and sit down!"  
"No, Tristan, that's not what they're saying. Actually, it's more of a 'take pity on us! Take us home and have Tristan give us a nice relaxing massage!" Rory kept walking as Tristan stopped. She turned back to find him standing a full five feet behind her, jaw practically down at the floor. "What?" Rory asked him with an odd look on her face.  
"Rory...tell...tell me you did not just say I should give you a foot massage," Tristan said, the playful digust coming out in his words. Rory's eyes narrowed into slits.  
"Who said you should? I said you had to! Mm!" she said on a high-pitched moan, continuing her little hop-skip-jump routine down the sidewalk outside of the building.  
Tristan followed her, his much more mature blue eyes growing a little wistful as he briskly walked behind. His khaki Armani trenchcoat protected against the namesake of the Windy City, and his Gucci suit was silk-lined for warmth. Rory, however, even though she was moving, and quickly, once she stopped at the street corner, Tristan saw her hug herself for warmth.   
"Forget your coat at your hotel, milady?" he asked, coming up behind her and breathing a trail of warm air near her ear. Rory shivered even more at the abrupt almost-contact.  
"Forget your brain?" she asked with a grin, not turning around.  
"Ah!" Tristan placed his hand over his heart in mock injury. "But you're insulting me? It's little more than 40 degrees out here, Ms. Gilmore, and you, if I do say so myself, look positively freezing. I'm the one with the coat."  
Tristan grinned again when Rory grudgingly turned around. "Gimme some of that," she growled softly, nuzzling into Tristan's side where he held open the warm overcoat.   
"My my my, Rory, after all these years, you finally say that. And in public, too!" he teased. Rory rolled her eyes, and slapped him on the chest, but she stayed burrowed into the warmth of his chest, and didn't move. Tristan, patting one hand on the top of her head, just smiled and looked alternately at the city above him and the woman next to his heart.  
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"Rory!" The subject woke up to the loud sounds of banging on her hotel room door. Rory blinked her eyes at the afternoon sunlight that was coming through the window, and slowly rolled off of the bed.  
"What...do...you...want?" she mumbled, opening the door to Tristan, who sauntered in.  
"To hang out with you?" he asked, dropping onto her rumpled bed. She glared again, rubbing sleep out of her blue eyes. Tristan grinned.  
"Okay, look, Dugrey...if you woke me up," Rory growled, "with that obscene noise at my door just to come in and do nothing...oh, you'd better have a good way to repay me."  
Once again, the grin. "Oh, I can think of plenty of ways to repay you, Rory, trust me."  
"And yet....when I think of them.....they all involve you leaving!" she said in mock surprise. He laughed good-naturedly.   
"I suppose that they do. However, that's not the point. For some reason, we didn't get two hotel rooms...we...got one?" he finished, wincing in preparation for the rant he knew was to come.  
"We got one? Are they crazy? I won't sleep in a room with you! Why did we only get one? Why didn't we realize this? Why didn't they? Do they think that we would stay in one room? If they find you on the ground twenty-five floors beneath our window, will the be so inclined to blame me? What is wrong with these people? Who let them say anything but 'would you like fries with that?' to the general public? Who let them out of their cages anyway?!" Rory ranted crazily, throwing in a couple of random gestures that were obviously necessary to her fanatic, impromptu speech.  
"Well, we didn't realize it because we checked our bags in hotel storage because we didn't have enough time before the meeting, remember? So......with all of that said and done...or I sure hope that it is..." Tristan backed away from Rory playfully. "I'm going to have a bell boy bring up our luggage." He picked up the phone next to the bed, making Rory eye it uneasily. One bed. She finally threw up her hands.  
"Argh!!!" was her exclamation, and she stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Tristan spoke quickly into the phone.  
"Luggage number 17, under 'Dugrey' to room 2514, please. Thank you." He replaced the phone casually and crossed to the bed. Tristan fell back onto it with a contented grin, getting nice and comfortable. He looked toward the bathroom with a smirk.  
"So, Rory...how tempted to you think you'll be?"  
There was a pause. Then;  
"Argh!!!" He grinned again. She was so predictable. And soon, so his. 


	3. Anatevka, ponies and some good Mafia con...

Author's Note: Sorry about taking so long. I've been writing this all in a notebook instead of on my computer, so I had to take the time to type it out. Thank you guys for the seriously great reviews, again! I STILL don't have any idea of where this story is going, so I figure I'll just let it flow and see what happens. I still need ideas! You can email 'em to me (AMRDaze@aol.com) or just stick them in the review...because you know you want to review = ) Read on!--Annest  
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"Rory?" Tristan called, still lying on the bed. It was at least fifteen minutes after she had stormed in. After getting up to get their luggage, Tristan returned to the bed to watch televsion. In response, he heard a muffled sound.  
"Tristan?" she answered, sounding antagonized.  
"Okay, babe, you're going to have to come out sometime. It's not even night yet. Don't you plan on ever eating dinner?"  
"Feed it to me under the door," Rory told him with what he knew was a frown.  
"Why, Rory, first a foot massage, and now you want me to feed you? I'm feeling used."  
"I'll use you, alright. Your body would always make a great donation to science, you know." Tristan stifled a laugh at their banter, and he heard the lock unclick when she walked out. She looked less asleep, with her hair combed and her face washed, and he smiled at her.   
"What time is it?" Rory asked him, sighing. She grudgingly sat down on the bed next to him.  
Tristan pushed his sleeve back casually to check his silver watch. "It's 5:20. Or, in Gilmore words, it's coffee time."  
"Never joke about coffee, Tris, you know that. No, really. It's 5:20? What are we doing tonight?" Rory asked, casting a baleful eye at the remote beside Tristan.  
He smirked, and quelled it when Rory swatted his arm. "We don't have a meeting this evening, we have the next one at 10 tomorrow morning. Between now and then, nothing. Do you want to eat dinner, and maybe see a movie?" Inexplicably, Rory's heart started to pound. The thought of going out with Tristan.....dinner, a dark theatre.....it wasn't an unusual occurance, but it made her pulse quicken. She shook herself mentally. It wasn't anything. It was Tristan, after all.  
"Yes. And now."  
"Now?!" Tristan questioned, raising his eyebrows at her hurry. Rory gestured to the bathroom.  
"Did you see a coffee pot in there?"  
"What's the right answer?"  
"No."  
"Then no, Rory, I di--okay, we'll go get you some coffee. Are you ready to go?" Tristan said, as if talking to a child. Rory bit her lip, and nodded. His heart contracted. If she only knew...how beautiful she is. He grinned at her.   
"Then shall we go, milady?" he said as he offered his arm. Rory brushed past. "Who're you calling your lady?" Tristan just laughed as he followed her out of the hotel room, grabbing their coats as he left.  
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"Tristan, you said movie..." Rory told him, looking up at the theatre across the street. The marque, in bold red and gold letters, announced the Broadway tour of _Fiddler on the Roof.  
_ "Oh, did I? I mean a Broadway show," Tristan looked down at her with mock shame and squeezed her small hand with a smile. Rory's heart fluttered again. _Must be the cold, _she told herself stubbornly, but she squeezed back.  
"How'd you knw that Fiddler is my favorite, Mr. Dugrey?" Rory asked him, raising her eyebrows.  
"Rory, _Fiddler isn't _your favorite. _Phantom of the Opera _is, but Fiddler is your second favorite, because you have five copies of _Phantom _and only four of _Fiddler,_" Tristan explained to her with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, and Rory nodded, laughing, because she knew he was right. "Besides, there's someone who I want you to meet."  
Rory looked questioningly at him again, but he pulled her quickly across the street while traffic was stopped. When they stepped up on the sidewalk, Tristan placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd of people outside the theatre. She shivered at the touch, but Tristan didn't seem to notice. The two swept in the theatre after a few hushed words with the manager and were immediately escorted to a private box.   
Rory was used to going places with Tristan like this all of the time; a few soft spoken words, a quick nod and a 'yes sir, Mr. Dugrey' before they were instantly treated like royalty. She laughed, and Tristan looked over.  
"What? Is my tie crooked or something?" Rory checked, just to humor him, and shook her head.  
"I was just thinking about how your 'mafia connections' come in handy sometimes," as she called them. "Especially like this." Tristan just smiled and took her hands in his, like he had so many times before, as the soft serenade of a lone fiddler began to fill the air.  
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Rory wiped the last tear from her cheek as the house lights went up and the audience began to leave. With a glance at Tristan, she noticed he stared straight at the stage, his gaze unwavering. Rory placed her slim hand on his shoulder, and they both jumped at the contact.  
"Haunting, isn't it?" he asked her huskily as the orchestra played the last strains of "Anetevka." Rory nodded, knowing he knew her response without looking. In a moment, a dark-haired man walked out from stage right with a towel hanging around his neck.  
"Tristan!" he called, spotting Tristan and Rory in the box. Rory gasped, because it was the actor who had played Tevye, but then she shut her mouth on a chuckle. It certainly wasn't the first time, she reminded herself again. Tristan grinned and practically jumped out of his chair, but managed, as always, to look suave and calm.   
"Hey! I'll--we'll--be right down!" In a flash, Tristan pulled her down a hall, through a door and into an old service elevator. _Knowing everyone is one thing, _Rory thought, _but knowing places is quite another! _She didn't have any more time to wonder because, with a _clang _the elevator opened to reveal the backstage. The man stood right in front of them, but he looked about forty years younger and 200 pounds lighter than he had during the show.  
Rory must have been giving him a quizzical look, because he laughed. "I took the padding off already." She nodded as Tristan and the older guy enveloped each other in a tight hug. After a minute, Tristan stepped back and pulled Rory in.   
"Rory, meet my cousin, Jamie Montaigne. Jamie, this is Rory Gilmore, my business partner." Rory extended her hand with a smile.  
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Montaigne."  
"Please, call me Jamie." Rory could easily see the family resemblance--down to the easy going charm of a Dugrey smile.  
"Jamie then. Tristan didn't tell me that the star of the show was his _cousin_," Rory said with a playful glare in Tristan's direction. He gave her a look of pure innocence.  
"I...forgot!" Jamie lightly punched Tristan on the arm and they both laughed.   
"You mean like the time when we were at Grandmother's and Grandfather's when we were little and you 'forgot' not to ride the pony in the kitchen?" Jamie reminded him.  
"I STILL don't see why it was such a problem! I do it all the time at _my _house!" Rory snorted.  
"Tristan, the only 'pony' you have is a Mustang." She paused for a second. "Although that may explain the tire tracks on the linoleum..." All three of them laughed, and Tristan and Rory said their goodbyes after a while, promising to meet Jamie for lunch the next day.   
Jamie called to them as they made their way up the main aisle.  
"Hey, Tristan!" They stopped, and Tristan turned around. "I like her!" Jamie yelled.  
Tristan's response was barely audible, but easily distinguised by Rory, who had a lot of practice when it came to his under-breath retorts. Except his soft words didn't sound like a retort at all, and she averted her eyes when she heard them.  
"So do I," Tristan said softly, quickly gazing at her and then back. "So do I."  
  



	4. Banter, both ways

Author's shpiel (or however you're supposed to spell that): Back the same day I left! Here's more...it's pretty short, and it might not be satisfying, for that matter, but, as usual, review, please! Tell me what you think, where this oughta go! I just finished reading Luce's new story, and I'm dying of pure jealousy, because she's so good and I'm not at all, but I guess we can't all be perfect. *Sigh* However, reviews would be appreciated anyway! Read on....--Annest  
  
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It was later, much later, and the air was crisp and cold as the two friends strolled down the sidewalk on their way to the hotel. Rory's small gloved hand was clasped in Tristan's larger one, and he was cutting his strides short to match her smaller ones, all the while gazing wistfully at her.  
"Rory..." he said softly, pulling her over to a quiet, almost empty cafe. She nodded, and held on to Tristan's hand even as the waitress seated them at a little round table in the corner.  
"What'll you two have?" the waitress, who must have been about nineteen or twenty, asked them, popping her gum while she waited.  
Tristan looked up at her, turning on the full blue-eyed charm, and the teenager froze, gum in midpop. He smiled beguilingly and Rory rolled her eyes.   
"I'll have a vanilla italian soda and she'll have your largest cup of coffee, to go, please," Tristan ordered, grinning at Rory with his eyes as he stroke her hand. The waitress's eyes were obviously jealous as she walked off with their orders. Rory groaned.  
"Thanks a lot, Tristan,--now she's going to spit in my coffee..."  
"Yes, but you'll still drink it anyway," Tristan, grinning, told her matter-of-factly. Rory thought about it for a moment and then consented.  
"So?" she countered, sticking out her tongue. Tristan's cocky grin was in full force.  
"Well, Rory, if I had known you wanted your tongue in my mouth, you just had to ask. We didn't even have to stop here." Rory took the bait immediately, and returned with a retort of her own.  
"Oh, but the taste of coffee makes it so much better."  
"So now you're thinking about the way I taste?" Tristan asked her lasviciously, raising an eyebrow over his blue eyes in a perfected move.  
"Oh yeah," Rory responded, psuedo-breathlessly. Her voice was full of sarcasm. "Coffee...chocolate mousse...coffee....strawberries and coffee...whipped cream and coffee..." she told Tristan, rolling her eyes.  
"Hungry for me, huh Rory?"  
"Hungry for coffee. Other than that, I wouldn't exactly say 'no' if you went and got me a croissant right now," she said, ending their banter for a while.  
"Say no to what?" he asked as if he was making sure, but he couldn't resist putting one more suggestive comment out there.  
"Killing you."  
"Violent tendencies...should I be afraid?" The swooning waitress put their drinks on the table in to-go cups and Tristan and Rory walked back out, still talking.  
"Should you be afraid? Oh, most certainly! Always be afraid of a Gilmore. Oh! Speaking of!" Rory plunged her hand in the pocket of Tristan's overcoat and pulled out his cell phone, placing it to her ear before he could form a coherent, let alone suggestive, sentence.   
"Hey, it's me," Rory spoke into the phone. The easily-heard and familiar sound of Lorelei Gilmore came through clearly.  
"Rory, it is midnight. Midnight!" Tristan emphasized, as if she didn't understand that that meant it was the middle of the night. Rory shot him a look and spoke to her mom in short noises that made Tristan grin.   
"Hm. Yeh. Here." In a flash, the phone was pressed up against his ear and with it came a full assault of Lorelei Gilmore's voice.  
"Do not ever try and discourage that offspring of mine from calling me! Ever! Do not think that I am not the most important person in her life, Mister Dugrey! That's just like assuming...well, I'm sure that I could have come up with a great analogy involving Rudy Guilianni, porn stars and the occasional zebra, but..."  
"Shut. Up. And go to sleep, Lorelei," Luke could be heard grumbling.  
"Luke, you've been married to me for--for--well a long time now. You realize by now that you don't have to give me coffee to get me into bed. So really, this being awake at midnight thing is all your fault!" Tristan laughed at the muffled thud of a pillow hitting Lorelei upside the head.  
"Tristan, tell Rory goodnight, and I'm sorry if her mother is soon found strangled. It's not entirely my fault," Luke said, taking the phone from his wife.  
"Not entirely, sir, of course. Goodnight." The phone call ended there, and Tristan stuck his cell back in his pocket with only a grudging grunt from Rory. He grabbed her hand again, and they set off for the hotel once more. 


	5. What happened?

Author's Note: AAAH! I can't explain what in the WORLD happened the first time I tried to put this chapter up--but I'm trying again. Sorry! Review, out of pure pity because my computer hates me, please?!? Read on--Annest  
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Rory moaned as she stumbled out of the sitting room into the bedroom, her plaid pajama bottoms dragging a bit when she stepped on them. Tristan didn't look at her, rather, sensing her presence, he flipped off the t.v. and laid down in bed, throwing back the covers and rolling to the far side. Rory felt a twinge, almost one of disappointment, but a look at the clock, flashing its bright red numbers...1:30...1:31...1:32...and Rory passed it off as sheer exhaustion, falling under the thick comforter to shield herself from the cold air.   
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2:03 AM Tristan craned his neck back and blinked, having been woken up by a strange sound or movement, which he was accustomed to when he stayed in hotels. It turned out to be Rory's kicking, he supposed sleepily, and he looked at her, nestled with her back against his chest. The two laid there, spooned under the comforter, and Tristan drifted back asleep contentedly.  
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6:17 AM "Hello?" Rory answered groggily, catching the phone before it rang a second time and woke up Tristan. She barely made the connection that she had been sleeping in his arms before the rude awakening.  
"Ms. Gilmore?" a perky voice asked on the other end. Rory despised people who were perky before noon. The early-morning annoyance went on without pause. "This is Betsy, at Craig and Jennings. I hate to call you this early..."  
"Sure you did," Rory grumbled, barely bothering to cover the mouthpiece. Tristan rolled over again.   
"...but Mr. Jennings and Mrs. Bryant were regrettably detained in St. Louis yesterday evening at a meeting, and they won't be able to make it back before very late tonight. They both say that they really enjoyed your presentation, and that, in their absence, please accept the contract that they've faxed your home office. I'm reeeeeeeally sorry to bother you!" There was an audible pop! that reminded Rory of the waitress from the evening before. Abruptly the line went dead, and Rory sighed. Tristan was still asleep...it was six in the morning...and they had no reason to get up. She crawled back into bed and tentatively brushed her lips against his jaw, admiring his sleeping profile before she cuddled back into his chest and fell asleep.  
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9:32 AM Tristan's lashes fluttered, and his eyes slowly adjusted to the light flowing in the window of the hotel room. He wasn't awake yet, hovering on the brink of sleep, and waking up with a woman in his arms wasn't entirely unusual. A soft kiss planted on her neck, nuzzling--Tristan briefly reveled in her feel before she turned over, and he was shot back to reality and instantly awake. Rory.  
God.  
He couldn't--he wouldn't--no. Never.  
But her neck was so sweet. That tender exposed flesh, the taste of her against his lips had Tristan groaning. And Rory burrowed into his chest again, moving into the void that had been created when he was shocked awake by the woman in his arms. In sleep she moved against him, tossing her arms up at random, where they came to rest above her head on her pillow. Tristan winced as Rory leaned away, still deeply asleep, as if inviting him to take her lips in his own.  
He couldn't resist. One kiss. One taste. She'll never--Tristan couldn't stop himself, in mid-promise to himself, he laid his lips softly against Rory's, plundering gently. His thumb came up to stroke her cheek, and Tristan's brain told him to stop. Rory was his friend. Rory was his business partner. Rory was awake.   
Rory was awake?  
Rory was awake. And kissing him back.  
Not completely, Tristan realized, her eyelids were still half closed. But there was no doubt in his mind that the lips that had begun to search his were certainly not in their deep slumber anymore.  
He knew he should pull away, that going any farther would be taking advantage of her when she didn't even know what was going on. Tristan tried--I really am trying, he insisted to himself--but Rory's arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and her pajama pant-clad legs intertwined with his. He pulled back from her, disconnected the surge of electricity that ran through their kiss, but Rory sleepily but forcefully pulled her to him again, meeting his lips in a clash.  
There was sleepy passion, unchecked gentleness in the kiss as his lips lazily rubbed against hers. Tristan slowly slipped his hand under her back, holding her tightly to his chest as their mouths fused softly.   
There was the click,--the turning point--and it came unexpectedly. One moment Rory was asleep, Tristan slowly coaxing her lips without any thought to going farther, and the next thing he knew, he was pursuing the sweetness of the recesses of her mouth, running his tongue along her lips before delving in. In a flash Rory's hands were twined around his neck and fiercly clenching in his tousled hair as Tristan savaged her mouth, sucking her pouting bottom lip between his own and grazing her tongue over and over again with his teeth, demanding with his tongue as Rory fought against her passion in a daze.  
Seconds later, Tristan was standing tensely beside the bed, not daring to glance at Rory, who laid still on the bed, propping herself up only by her elbows. The brief look he had stolen as he broke away from her made Tristan groan silently at the sight of her tousled hair and swolen lips. Her eyelids were still half-closed as she adjusted to light in the room. There was a single tear in her eye, one that didn't fall, as she slowly crawled out of the mess of sheets and went into the sitting room, leaving him alone. Tristan stood silently in the corner, bathed in the light of the overcast Chicago morning, feeling sick at not knowing what went wrong.   



	6. Shared bathrooms and other disadvantages...

She wasn't happy.  
Who would be? the voice inside yelled at him. Tristan rolled his eyes.  
But Rory wasn't happy. She had stormed out around noon, wearing baggy sweats, insisting that she was going for coffee.   
That had been three hours ago. No, she was definitely not chipper after...what had happened. Tristan cursed himself for that, knew it was his fault; still, only a little while later, it was shaping up to be impossible for him to forget Rory's body under his, her lips against his own, shaping to each other's texture and taste they had craved. Or he had. Tristan kicked himself for that one, too. Taking advantage of Rory was one thing. Doing it when he was already so deeply in love with her he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been--well, that was another issue completely.   
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Rory stared at the revolving doors of their hotel without realizing it at all. Her mind was focused on the man she would be forced to encounter upstairs. People of all shapes and sizes went in, the doors revolved. People of all shapes and sizes came out, the doors revolved. Her eyes followed them, unthinking, because she dreaded going up there, dreaded seeing Tristan.  
A man in a business suit bumped into her, obviously in a hurry. "Sorry," she muttered under her breath, still not paying attention. Rory looked at the watch on her wrist. 3:14 pm. Their flight left at 5:05, and they would need to get there an hour ahead of time. "I'm just going to have to buck up and go in there. I have to see him some time," Rory said quietly, moving for the revolving doors she had stared at for so long.  
____________________________  
"Oops, sorry. I thought you were in there. Nevermind," Tristan said, opening and closing the bathroom door immediately. Rory turned from the sink and motioned him in.   
"No, that's okay. I'm just trying to put on some makeup real fast, then we can get going." Rory didn't let her eyes meet Tristan's in the mirror as he stood behind her, sticking his hands deep in his pockets.  
"Um..." Tristan started haltingly. "Ah, Rory..."  
"Ouch!" His hands immediately went to her waist after her exclamation, and both of them ignored the fact that Rory jumped at the tension that exploded onto her skin from his fingertips.   
"What happened?" Tristan asked her with concern. Their eyes connected in the mirror, and hers were wincing.  
"I poked myself in the eye with the mascara," Rory told Tristan sheepishly. He grinned at her and ruffled her hair. Weird...Rory thought silently...It's almost like we're married or something. A mental kick sent that thought flying, though. She blinked once, twice, and smiled tightly at him again.   
"I'll go get my bags."  
"I already had them sent down."  
"Okay, well, I'll go and grab my purse."  
"It's at the concierge's desk waiting with my briefcase."  
"You sent my purse down there? What about my wallet? What if something happened to me? What if some crazed gunman ran in here and shot me? There would be no way to identify my body! What if the INS busted in and charged me as being an illegal alien? What if I need to drive? My I.D. is in my wallet! My money is in my wallet! And my wallet's in my purse! Gosh dangit, Tristan Dugrey, my chapstick is in my purse! And let's not go into what happens when I don't have any chapstick!" Rory's cheeks were flushed, and Tristan had to keep himself from laughing--or making comments about her lips, chapstick or no chapstick--and it was quite the losing battle. He managed to stick with a grin.   
"You're rambling. And your wallet is right there. And look!" Tristan pointed a lean, tanned finger at the little tube of Chapstick sitting next to the black Nine West wallet. Rory scooped them both up and glared at his reflection.   
"I'm leaving. I'm going down to the concierge's desk and make that little evil man--that cohort of yours--give me back my purse. And then I'm getting myself a cab and I'm going to the airport and I'm going to get on the plane, but not before trading your lousy ticket to the first man that I find for a pet chimpanzee. Because the chimp will smell better. So I'm going to get my purse, and a cab. Good bye." Rory bounded out of the bathroom, in no way reminiscent of her education or natural grace, and was almost to the hotel room door when Tristan's strong voice floated from inside the bedroom.  
"That's fine, Rory. But the limo's already waiting."   
Tristan just laughed when the door slammed. His Rory...God, she was amazing. And so much fun, Tristan said to himself. It's too bad it's as much fun to kiss her as it is to drive her crazy. But hey--maybe it works both ways. Well, Dugrey, it looks like it's a win-win situation.  
Tristan knew better, though, no matter what. No, it's not necessarily a win-win situation. It's just a What-Rory-Wants situation...it always is.   
______________________________  
Within the hour they were at the O'Hare airport, sitting in the comfortable first class seats of a flight from Chicago to Boston. Neither Tristan nor Rory looked at each other, except when they thought that the other one wasn't looking.  
"Mm...that's kind of weird," Rory observed, looking around the spacious cabin.  
"Hm?" Tristan looked up from the Wall Street Journal, incidentally featuring an article on his own father's business conglomerate's newest hostile takeover as the front page news.   
"Oh, it's just that there are only three other people in first class--that's kind of strange, don't you think?"  
"Not really. Travel's slow the last couple of weeks." Tristan smiled at her, and placed what appeared to be a condescending hand on top of hers. Both of them, however, were highly aware that his stayed on hers much longer than it had to. Rory shivered, and she looked to see if Tristan had noticed--but he had looked back to his paper already.  
"Oh." Rory sank back into the plush seat in defeat. "I see."  
_________________________________  
Three hours later, Tristan was asleep and snoring softly, his blond head nestled into Rory's neck as she watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on the movie screen that popped up from the armrest. She sighed softly, unwilling to voice her content.  
That morning had been amazing. Lord, I could wake up like that every morning for the rest of my life, Rory though, unabashed because her thoughts, surprising even to her, were unspoken anyway. The feel of his hands on her body, gently sculpting as his lips possessed hers--and it drove her crazy to remember it.  
How could I have reacted like that if--if--I didn't like him? Rory shook her head at the quiet voice inside, and Tristan shifted in response, turning his head into her neck and laying his open lips again the soft skin, still asleep. All the same, Rory knew it was futile to try and stop the flutter in her heart, to convince herself that the twinge inside of her as she looked at the sleeping man beside her meant nothing.  
Face it, Gilmore. You don't like him. You're in love with Tristan. TRISTAN. Give it up...you're in love...so admit it already!  
"But I don't want to!" Rory mumbled in response.  
"Mmmmmmmhmmm?" Tristan murmured, his lashed fluttering as he drifted in sleep.   
"Nothing, Tristan," Rory told him. His ice blue eyes cleared for a second and looked with concern and blatant care at her, and Rory calmed him by planting a soft kiss on his smooth forehead. "Go back to sleep. I love you."  
Tristan murmured contentedly and immediately followed her direction, leaving Rory to rack her brain for the remaining two hours of the flight as to why she had muttered that endearing phrase--one that, on top of that--she had realized was undeniably true...and completely insane at the same time.  
_______________________________  
"What the hell is going on?" Tristan started the second the door to Rory's office had slammed behind him.  
Rory was at the full window that looked out across Boston's bustling business district. Her posture was tense, and between the door and her was a trail; next to Tristan, a black loafer, a few feet away, its mate, and farther, the scarf she had been wearing around her neck, now thrown haphazardly onto the ground behind her. Tristan followed the bread-crumb accessories to his business partner with his eyes.  
"Rory, I asked you a question."  
"Yes, Tris, you did."  
"Damnit, what the heck was that? A normal staff meeting! It's been a week, you said, since we got back. We should have a full meeting to discuss the new account, you said! And then you sit in a meeting of our employees and trash me! I'm irresponsible. I'm rash. I'm impulsive. Sure, you didn't come right out and say that, Rory, but you might as well have broadcast it over national TV. What is going on, Rory?"  
"I don't know." Her back was still turned, and the view of black fabric and the back of her head infuriated Tristan. He stormed over, turning her around on her bare feet to face him. In her surprise, Rory was yanked up to Tristan, standing on her tip-toes to look him in the eyes.   
"I asked you a question, Rory."  
"I can't give you an answer! I can't give you anything!" Tristan refused to believe her, and quickly decided to save his response to that second comment until later...much later, but he let go of her and crossed to Rory's desk, gazing at the three large pictures that took over much of the desktop, along with trinkets, many of which he had given her. The first, Rory and Lorelei at Lorelei's wedding to Luke (who stood behind the camera with Tristan, Tristan remembered, holding the girls' ever-present coffee); the second, Rory's graduation from Harvard; third, Tristan himself, a picture Rory had taken in the backyard of Lorelei's house one summer evening.  
The woman who had impishly snapped that photograph and the woman who stood away from him, refusing to give him an explanation couldn't be one and the same.   
"Rory, you should at least give me an explanation for those innuendoes you were throwing around earlier, you know!" This time, Rory whirled around on her own.  
"Innuendoes? You wanna talk innuendoes?! I'll tell you what an innuendo ISN'T, Tristan Dugrey! An innuendo ISN'T where you way someone up by basically making love to them, and then just stopping all of the sudden. At least I know how to be subtle!"  
Tristan sank into her desk chair and covered his face with his hands, but, after thinking about it, got up and went back to Rory.  
"Rory.--God.--I'm sorry. I never meant to take advantage of you..."  
Hell hath no fury like a Gilmore who's not happy.  
"Ta--avda--you--you took advantage of--" Rory sputtered. "Listen, Tristan, you didn't take advantage of me. This is what it looks like to take damn advantage of somebody."  
Before he knew what was happening, Rory had plunged them both into a long, lascivious kiss that sent them both reeling as Rory's tongue explored his mouth. Her hands ran seductively up his chest and over his shoulders, creeping up to caress the back of his neck. Tristan stood paralyzed before he began to respond, taking her hips in his hands and angling her body into his. Regardless, Rory was still the one to break the kiss, nipping at his neck before backing a few steps away from Tristan with a gleam in her eyes. She wasn't even flushed, as if the kiss had had no effect on her. Tristan groaned inwardly.  
"That--was taking advantage of somebody. Know the difference, unless you plan on apologizing next time, too." Rory was almost out the door when Tristan ventured one more question.  
"Will there be a next time?" Rory barely turned toward him, and her hand still rested on the doorknob.  
"I don't know, Tristan. You tell me."  
  
__________________________________  
  
Author's craziness: (Notice I get a little crazier every time? Huh...interesting)   
Well. That was the end of that. No, not the story, just this chapter. Sorry it took me so long...finals and all that crap. Not that I even have really hard classes......whoever said your sophomore year of IB is hard was obviously not taking my classes. But all the same, regardless of the fact that I have classes like Drama 3, I still had to finish up the semester. Starting a 4-day weekend, so I hope to get a new chapter up by Monday night. Reviews, as always, are fantasmic...even better would be recommendations as to where I should take this story. Leave it in PG-13 territory, or take it into R? I'd risk NC17, but it's just not always that much fun. Well....review! I'm a starving artist....your basic feedback whore. I'm easy if I get reviews! *Snort* --Annest 


	7. When you need the inside information...

Author's note: Um, yes, I'm back. This lovely little chapter is for K (the mini-me, my sister) who is in love with the idea of being best friends with a guy and falling for him. Don't ask me why--she's only seen me do it, and now my best friend and I don't even speak to each other because I hate him, and visa versa--but she does. Sorry it's so short--I just wanted to put this in here by itself because it makes more sense, instead of grouping it with other scenes. Review at the end, por favor! Read on--Annest  
____________________________  
Tristan sat at his desk, looking down to the first floor--the "bullpen," as his seceratary called it--of Dugrey & Gilmore. He glanced at the office across from his occasionally, where Rory paced, easily seen through the glass wall. Her phone was up to her ear and she was talking animatedly, throwing wild gestures around and stomping her right foot every once and a while. Tristan grinned--she must've been talking to Lorelei.  
"If I were just pick up the phone and click in on a conference call........Rory wouldn't notice. She never does," he mused to his empty office. The mischeivous gleam in his eyes was definitely a bad sign--Tristan deftly reached across his desk and grabbed the phone, putting it up to his ear and clicking the "conference" button softly. He held his breath, and thankfully Rory was in the middle of a loud rant.  
"--but it was soooo stupid! Who does he think he is, anyway? It's not as if he can't control me in the first place!"  
"I don't think he wants to, Rory. Although, being the business-partner-formally-known-as-the-devil, it could always be a closet possibility."  
"Mom, he drives me insane! He came into my office yesterday after a staff meeting--because we had to discuss the new account--and starts off by being controlling and masogynistic and just overall egotistically disgusting."  
On his silent end of the phone, Tristan balked with mock consternation, but he smiled.  
"Ah huh."  
"What? What is that? 'Ah huh'" Rory mocked her mother.  
"It was an 'ah huh', oh Mini-Me," Lorelei answered.  
"And what kind of an 'ah huh' was it?" Tristan barely contained his laughter. It doesn't get any crazier...he thought.  
"So, what happened in your office, Ror?"  
"He yelled at me."  
"Agh! Obviously, that's his capital offense. Call out the guard. A man has yelled at my daughter. MY daughter!"   
"Mom!!!"  
"Somehow, Rory Gilmore, I think he wasn't the only one yelling..."  
"Well...yeah..." Rory interjected in a small voice.  
"...and that that wasn't the only problem, either."  
"It was!"  
"Yeah right."  
"Was!"  
"Was not!"  
"Was too!"  
"Was not!"  
"Was too!"  
"Was not!"  
"Fine! I kissed him! He yelled at me, and I yelled at him, and then I kissed him! And it was a damn good kiss! And it took all that I have inside of me to walk away from him, because he kissed me back, and...my god."  
"Mmhm. And when were you going to tell me about what happened between you guys in Chicago?"  
Tristan jumped in his chair, and he saw Rory jolt.  
"What? How did you know about that?" Rory asked her mother.  
"Well it was kind of obvious. Something had to have happened--you've been pissed at him ever since you got back from that business trip."  
"Only because he's stupid."  
"Or he kissed you. Or you just got it on."  
"Mom!"  
"My god, Rory, there's no harm in asking! Did you sleep with Tristan?"  
"Why in god's name would I sleep with Tristan?"  
"Because you're in love with him."  
"I didn't tell you that, either!"  
"Well are you?"  
"That's not the point, mom."  
"So you are, huh?" Lorelei asked in a sympathetic voice.  
"I...well, I wish I weren't."  
"Why?"  
"Because he doesn't love me back."  
"Oh, honey..."  
"And because he's a bastard."  
Lorelei laughed. "That's my girl!"  
Tristan placed the phone gently placed the phone back in its cradle, shocked.  
"It doesn't get any crazier..." he repeated aloud. "And I have GOT to stop talking to myself."  
In his mind, the sentence rang over and over. "I...well, I wish I weren't."   
Rory was in love with him.  
It was enough to make a man fall over. 


	8. ...know where to go! The mama knows bes...

Author's note: wow! You guys actually enjoyed that last chapter? I wrote it purely for no reason, but OK! = ) I needed the background information, so that the rest of it could make sense. I'm sorry that this is short again, but there's plenty of sexual tension (I promise) Read on!--Annest  
___________________________  
Rory sat at her large desk, tapping a pen against the desktop incessantly. A contract lay on her desk, waiting to be read and rejected, a market report and the Wall Street Journal sat on the floor next to the waste basket ("I have a seceretary for that!" she would insist to Tristan, much to his chagrin) and the latest issues of People magazine and the New York times sat right next to her arm, half-finished.  
Every couple of seconds, in between pen taps, Rory's blue eyes flew across the open air of the 2nd floor to Tristan's office. He was gazing intently at the screen of his computer, and Rory could see his fingers moving deflty across the keyboard and the mouse pad even from her own desk.   
"Dang him. I--he--he drives me crazy! Honestly!" she fumed. But Rory couldn't help herself...it was impossible for her not to admire him from a distance. The blonde tousled hair, which looked great whether he was wearing sweats or a tuxedo, the strong, tanned line of his jaw, clean shaven and perfect---he was every woman's dream, except for Rory's. He was her dream AND nightmare, she insisted to herself. To which the little annoying voice inside of her argued back "yes, but mainly your dream."  
_____________________________  
"You've got mail," Rory's voice announced. Tristan grinned. Having Rory record the AOL messages had cracked him up. No matter what, Rory's voice told him that "Somebody got online. Don't know who, but they did...," "...and they're gone," "Hey you," "You've got mail" and "Bye now!" everytime he got online. It was his way of driving her crazy when she was around and hearing her voice when she wasn't.   
Tristan quickly clicked the mouse button to open his email, which appeared to be one from Lorelei.  
_____________________________  
To: Dugrey&Gilmore.com: Dugrey,T   
From: CoffeeCrazy785@hotmail.com (Lorelei Gilmore Danes)  
Subject: Aha! I caught you!  
Tristan,  
Don't think that I didn't know! Because I did! So now you know that I know   
what you didn't think that I would know but now know!   
*Whew, that was fun!*  
I heard that little click on the phone line, buster. Listening in on our   
conversation, huh? Well, in the interest of my lovely daughter, who is, coincidentally the love of your life, I'll give you the inside information (as if you don't already have most of it, you dog)  
Yes, Rory is in love with you.  
Yes, Rory hates you, too.  
Yes, you should go after her.  
Yes, I am done now. Ta-ta!  
--Lorelei, "the beautemous"  
_______________________________  
It was five o'clock. The long day was finally over, and Rory's seceretary, Lucy, lightly pushed the door open.  
"I'm out now, Rory. I'd remind you of what you need to get finished, but you're so much more organized than even I could ever be," Lucy told her with a grin. Rory laughed at herself.   
"Bye, Lucy!"  
Seconds later, there was a knock on her door. Without looking up, Rory motioned them in.  
"Forget something, Lucy?" Rory asked without glancing up.  
"You planning on staying here all night?" Tristan asked in a husky voice. Rory whipped her head up to see him casually leaning against the doorframe. As soon as she noticed him, Tristan stepped over the threshold and shut the door gently.  
"What are you doing here?" Rory asked him, trying to sound angry, but only succeeding in sounding breathless.  
"I don't really have anything I need to be finishing up tonight, and I thought I'd see if you want to have dinner." Tristan's eyebrow lifted in its incredibly cocky way, and the emphasis on words like 'need' and 'tonight' made Rory's heart beat quickly.   
"I have this contract I need to read."  
"You'll reject it."  
"How do you know?"  
"Because you always do."  
"And so why are we having this conversation, Tristan?"  
"Because I want you to have dinner with me tonight."  
"And if I don't want to?"  
"Then I'll pick you up and carry you out of this building by myself." The accompanying leer didn't do much for Rory's hopes that her heart would return to normal.  
"Fine."  
She quickly shut down her computer and tucked the loose papers into her desk, grabbing her briefcase, all the while glaring at Tristan, who just stood next to her desk with a smirk. There was the hand on her back again as she walked out of her office, and it lasted all the way to the elevator and to the parking lot across from office building.   
Inside Tristan's BMW, Rory stuck in the Vivaldi CD she had left in there earlier that week. With a grin, Tristan saw her, enjoyed the familiarity of their relationship. Her coffee-colored suit and ivory blouse matched her coloring perfectly, and her dark brown hair was pulled into a sophisticated knot at the nape of her neck. In short, Rory looked completely elegant.  
"Where are we going?" Rory asked him, breaking Tristan out of his reverie.  
"I thought we'd go to my place. We can order something, or I can just cook."   
Rory smiled, a wide, indulgent smile, and closed her eyes. Something inside of sommersaulted at the idea of going over to Tristan's--crazy, since she'd been there so many times--but she couldn't help it.   
______________________________  
Tristan's restored Boston Brownstone was perfect. His housekeeper, Anna, had left a fire in the cavernous hearth, and the lighting was dimmed. Rory flicked on the lights as she went from room to room, lighting up the open-brick walls and lush leather decor. She had left her shoes at the front door, as usual, but her panty hose were killing her, too.  
"Tristan?" she called, letting her voice waft through the first floor.  
"Yeah, Rory? Do you need something?" He must have been in the kitchen, probably on the phone or checking his messages.  
"Can I run upstairs and change real quick? I'm dying in here."  
"Yes, go ahead. I'll be down here."  
Rory made her way quickly up the carpeted stairs and around the corner to his bedroom. It was massive--the room took up the entire second floor along with the master bathroom and Tristan's closet, which Rory swore was almost twice the size of her own. There was a separate fire in here, glowing softly, smaller, and built-in bookshelves covered two of the walls. Along the back wall was Tristan's bed--Rory tried to avoid looking at it or thinking of it, but it was definitely impossible--a king-size sea of rich navy blue. Rory skirted around it and headed in to his closet, appearing a few minutes later in a pair of his college sweats and her Harvard sweatshirt, which she always meant to take home with her.   
Downstairs, Tristan was replacing the phone in the cradle as she stepped into the kitchen.  
"Hey. Nice outfit."  
"I know it. I happen to like the sweats especially. Maybe I should just steal them?" Rory said with a sly grin at her companion.  
"Bah. You have three pair of them--all mine, mind you--at your apartment already. Why take this pair too?"  
"I'm secretly planning to leave you completely clothes-less, so you'll have no choice but to come to work naked."  
"That hot for me, huh, Rory?"   
"Hardly. It's probably not all that impressive anyway." Tristan had her slowly backed up against the counter, but Rory didn't realize it.  
"Oh, I'm sure you'd be impressed. As soon as you saw it, you'd be begging for more." Tristan's hot breath on her mouth sent Rory's pulse racing.  
"Begging for less, don't you mean?"  
"Begging all the same."  
"I'll never beg you for anything, Tristan," she told him with a flirtatious shake of her head.  
"You'll be on your knees."  
"Not before I'll have you on yours."  
"We'll compromise, then. You get on your knees and put me on mine. How about that?"  
"I was thinking more along the lines of just breaking your kneecaps. I don't know what you were expecting," Rory told him, laced with suggestion. She spotted the QuikDine menu next to the phone and couldn't help herself. "So, what did you order?"  
"Angel hair pasta and salad from Mira's," Tristan told her, but even still he easily made the nickname for their friend, Mirabelle, sound like an innuendo.   
"Angel hair, huh? Trying to butter me up?"  
"So now you're fantasizing about me and food?" Tristan asked Rory with a grin.  
"If only you knew. Although most of the time it's just coffee. Alllll ovvvverr you..." Rory dragged the seductive phrase out just as the doorbell rang, and she ducked under Tristan's arm to dash over to the door.  
Rory opened the large wooden door to reveal a man who looked like he was a common delivery-driver for QuikDine, but then she laughed.  
"Jackson, what on earth are you doing? Tristan!" she called to him. Tristan stuck his head around the doorway, glancing at her. He held a glass of bourbon in his hand, and she took it from him gracefully. "Jackson's running delivery tonight." Tristan laughed too.  
"Yes, you two, laugh all you want. But Mira said she talked to you herself, Tristan, and she pulled me from my office upstairs and said to run this food over to you guys."  
"That's what you get, Jack, for marrying Mira in the first place. Of course, she didn't have the most successful Italian restaurant in Boston Common at the time, either," Tristan told him with a cheeky smirk.  
"Like I said, laugh all you want. As for me, she said run this over her, say, and I quote, 'hi, darling' to Rory and 'why haven't you run away with me yet?' to Tristan," Jackson relayed the messages from his wife with a grin, since Jackson and Mira were both in their forties. "I need to get back to my office. Not that I get anything done...who said it would be a good idea to put a law office over a restaurant?"  
"Jackson, dear, you know you like it. It certainly doesn't hurt your practice that the mayor and every other important person in the city frequents Mirabelle's like Tristan frequents GQ parties." Tristan gave her a look of mock hurt and patted Jackson on the back as he left.  
"You'll pay one of these days, Rory."  
Somehow, Rory knew what he was talking about. And it wasn't just the GQ comment, either.  
"You name the time and place."  
"How about I just name the price, and you pick the rest?" Tristan's striking gaze penetrated her eyes, blue on ice blue. Rory gasped quietly, feeling as though she had been taken by force by her rebellious emotions.  
"I don't know if I can pay, in that case. After all, I am broke. I'm all I have to my name, Tristan!" she told him with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood.  
Tristan had turned his back and sauntered into the kitchen again, to set the food down, but he threw his last comment over one well-dressed shoulder.   
"That's all I want, Rory. Or didn't you know that?" 


	9. Horse heads and nice shoes--not to menti...

Author's desperate plea for help: Ah! I don't know what in the world is wrong with the indentations in the last few chapters. Being a newspaper EiC, I use the 3-space default that has been pounded into my brain (any paper people out there should understand what I'm talking about) but it apparently doesn't show up or something. We'll try a different scheme, see how that works out. Read on!--Annest  
  
Oh! And Luce: Dang YOU for not updating, like, every five seconds either! Oh you are SOOO much better than I am. My lord! And I'm sorry that this is so short (again!) but I had to get it done; *whew!* the sexual tension was driving me insane. It's hard to write that, you know! and I suppose that that's why it took me forever.  
______________________________  
When Rory followed him in to the kitchen, Tristan had already placed the pasta and salad on white china plates and poured them both drinks. She put her empty glass in the sink and turned around when Tristan nudged her with his elbow.  
"Coffee for you, a bourbon for me," Tristan told her, his eyes not betraying what he had said just a minute before. Rory didn't know how to respond to the sudden platonicity of his mood, but she gratefully took the mug he offered her and headed toward what they referred to as Tristan's 'den'.   
"So, do we want to watch a movie, or go over some work?" Rory asked him, sitting her plate and silverware down on the polished wood coffee table. Tristan rolled his eyes and stepped over her knees to stand on the other side of her outstretched legs.  
"Rory?" he asked in exasperation. Rory turned her face up to his, wide-eyed.  
"Yes, Tristan?" Rory answered him, waiting for some random remark.  
"Are you trying to tell me that you really want to work? For god's sake, we left the office at least a half an hour ago. Are you crazy?"   
Rory crossed her arms in indignation. "Are you trying to say something?" she asked defensively.  
Tristan opened his mouth to shoot back a retort, but clamped it shut again. "So what movie do you want to watch?"  
"Maybe I want to do work."  
"Maybe I think you're insane."  
"Tell me something I don't know."  
"I'm in love with you?"  
"That's a laugh." Whoa...Rory thought. Where did THAT come from?  
"No, really. Movie?"  
"Um...do you want to watch one from my stash or one from yours?" Rory asked him, still comfortable in her position on the supple brown leather couch.  
"Aha. So I should take that as a hint to look at the movies and give you choices while you sit there and give me directions?" Tristan asked her with a laugh. Rory just nodded regally.  
"Yes, oh royal servant of mine. Oh! How about 'The American President'?" Rory sat up eagerly. "I haven't watched that in soooo long." Tristan signed in resignation.  
"I hate that movie."  
"You hate that movie." Rory laughed when they said that in unison.   
"No, really, Rory, I do," Tristan told her, but he reluctantly got out the DVD and stuck it in the state-of-the-art system.   
"Tell you what, Tristan--you watch Annette Benning humiliate herself in front of and then fall head over heels for the gorgeous Michael Douglas, and I'll let you watch...hm...well, what do YOU want to watch?"  
"I just got an autographed, special edition of the Godfather," Tristan told her with glee.  
"The horse head movie?" Rory groaned.  
"Yeah, Ror--the horse head movie. You know, people DO refer to it by its actual title..."  
"Those are people who apparently don't realize that a horse's head in bloody sheets denotes a movie as one of the most insane, disgusting movies ever made. I'm certain that there are at least twelve people in the world who agree with me."  
"Yes," Tristan shot back with a laugh. "You, Lane, your mother and her ten other personalities."  
"I'm not speaking to you anymore." Rory pouted and crossed her arms defiantly.  
"Ha. Why not, might I ask?"  
"Because. You left out Danae and Simon, the court jester."  
"Who are THEY?"  
"Personalities #11 and #12."  
"Ah! You spoke to me."  
"Shut up."  
"Well you did."  
"What will I have to do to make you be quiet?"  
"Kiss me."  
"I'll watch the movie instead," Rory shot back and turned to the television with a grin. Tristan was so easy to make fun of. Of course...kissing him wouldn't have been so bad, either.  
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"You know what?" Rory's voice was kind of hard to hear, since her face was buried in Tristan's neck, so he had to shift his body to face her. Rory didn't even jump at the proximity of their faces, since she was so comfortable. On the screen, Annette Benning was analyzing the president's first-date status, and Tristan chuckled, even though he swore he wouldn't.  
"What, Ror?"  
"I'm thinking I want to go to sleep," Rory told him with a tiny yawn. Tristan's heart jumped inside of his chest.  
"Already?"  
"Well...soon. I think I'll stay awake until they dance. I like that part." Rory grinned, and burrowed into Tristan's neck.   
"Okay...fine. Stick in the movie that I hate, and fall asleep. Sounds great to me, Gilmore..." Tristan groaned. Rory twined her arms around his neck and lifted her face to offer him a cheeky grin.  
"I know. It should." Tristan grinned back at her, a wide smirk coming across his face.  
"You know, maybe I'm just watching this movie to torture you..." Rory told him. Tristan balked.  
"No!" he said with a sarcastic snort. Rory grinned her cheeky smile again, inches from his face, and Tristan leaned in a little closer.   
"You know, Rory--maybe you torture me already," he said in a husky voice. Rory's breath abruptly caught in her throat.  
"I--torture you?" she asked him.  
"Unbearably."  
"Ah--mm--how do I torture Rory breathed out, biting her lip.  
"Well, when you get really nervous around me, you bite your lip, just like that," Tristan told her, flicking a finger gently at her lip, and Rory jumped and colored. "And you blush, so your skin's the color of roses." His smooth palm along her flaming cheek sent Rory's pulse racing, and Tristan leaned in another inch. Their mouths were a hair's breadth away from each other, and she gasped in the air that he breathed out.  
"I...I don't blush." Her cheeks were bright red, and Tristan couldn't resist dipping down and nipping ever so gently at the corner of her lip.   
"Tristan..." Rory breathed, laying her palm against his french blue shirt. Tristan stopped, pulled back a bit, and in spontaneity, Rory curled her fingers around the collar and pulled him back to her. Their lips were a breath away once again.   
"I only blush when you're this close," she said, breathing heavily at his nearness. Tristan chuckled into the air they were both breathing.  
"Maybe I should be this close more often." With that, he finished the space between them and delved into her mouth. Rory gasped, remembering the feel and fit of his mouth, and it felt perfect. Tristan's hands gently massaged her neck, his thumbs rubbing in circles on her sensitive skin as they kissed each other.   
"Tristan--" Rory moaned into his mouth as their lips melded together. He was levered over her, his tongue flicking at her lips, begging entrance. Again, her mouth opened on a groan and Tristan plunged into the open velvet she offered. Legs and arms were wrapped around each other, emotions pulling as pent up feelings warred inside both of them. Breathing haltingly, Tristan pulled back, but Rory leaned closer, pulling at Tristan's lips desperately. He laid his hand on her shoulder, stopping her.   
"Tristan--" she repeated, biting her swollen lip. Her blue eyes sparkled pleadingly. Tristan's heart was pulsing against his chest, and the two gasped lightly at the still-surprising shock of the simple touch of their hands.  
"Rory, if you don't..."  
"We have work tomorrow any..."  
"And we might as well go tog..."  
"I don't see why we shou.."  
"And we're consen..."  
"I love you," Rory breathed out, snapping her head up to look deep into his blue eyes.  
"Rory..." Tristan answered, stroking her cheek with his strong, smooth hand. "Let's...let's go upstairs." Nodding mutely, Rory's gaze blazed into Tristan's as he picked her up gently, carrying her up the carpeted stairs like a prince rescuing a fairy tale princess.   
It wasn't until later--much, much later--with a fire blazing in the fire place as the two laid tangled together on the satin sheets that Rory looked up at him again, questions brimming.   
"Tristan, what happens now?"  
"I don't know, Rory. But somewhere along the line I think it involves you, me, your mother and a wedding of some sort."  
"You know, she's already married," Rory told him with a smile, crawling up his chest to kiss him. "But I guess if you were to work really hard..."  
"Yes, but darling, I'm lazy. How 'maintainance required' is this daughter of hers I've heard so much about?"  
"Well..." Rory grinned at him, "there are massive amounts of coffee involved..."  
"That's good, because I think I just bought a whole bag of Hawaiian yesterday."  
"That oughta last me....an hour. After that, it's up in the air."   
"In which case, I think I'll just try for the mom. She's hot."  
"I'm leaving."  
"Fine."  
"Later."  
"Yeah...that's what I figured you'd say. C'mere," Tristan growled, and pulled her back to him again, reveling in the feel of their hearts beating together, even if it was a fleeting feeling.   
  
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Sorry it took soooo long! Between a new boyfriend, a new volvo and a head and neck injury from a 16th birthday party involving aforementioned boyfriend, 8 teenage girls, 2 male cheerleaders, another high school junior the size of Jolly Old St Nick and a wiry little puerto rican (for those of you who were keeping track, that's a total of 8 teenage girls and five high school junior guys) all on or around a trampoline, I haven't had much time to write. When one cannot move one's neck, she finds it difficult to type, especially since I've been in this position of semi-paralysis since Friday night. Blech. Well, really, I AM sorry! --Annest 


	10. The sexual connotations of the word "Oka...

Author's note: yes, still in pain. not doing much better, but I AM taking a total of, like, 13 pills a day (the peasants are sooo no longer rejoicing--I'm beyond doped up, I'm serious). As for the indentation thing...I think I've decided on this temporary solution, so...whatever. And, well, when I started on this chapter, I had NO idea where I was going. Then I figured it out randomly. And it suddenly got VERRRRY hot and heavy at the end...but I figure you guys wouldn't exactly hate me for some Trory action like that anyway = ) Read on--Annest  
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"Mary--I forgot, a board of trustees meeting for father's corporation, I'll be back around noon, we'll run to Mira's (because you can't go wrong with having her food twice in 24 hours, now can you?) and then Alyson Greene, with Price, called the office, they need us up there in New York tomorrow morning, they need emergency marketing to fix a problem from a little news blurb about Price Jr's son. I'll see you at noon--Tristan." The note was scrawled in Tristan's illegible handwriting, so it took Rory's half-awake eyes a few tries to fully understand the slip of paper he had left on the top of the coffee maker downstairs.   
  
She looked around sleepily, getting her bearings. Tristan had left her a mug, and coffee grounds to go with it, and she caught a hastily written note on a ripped corner of paper that proclaimed, "look, I told you!" and laughed.  
  
"Okay, he leaves me coffee, writes me a note, I have clothes at his place, he has clothes at my place and..." Rory trailed off, glancing at the blinking light of the caller ID and scanning through the list of numbers, "my mother knows his phone number," Rory said to no one in particular, especially since the kitchen was empty. Her heart beat inexplicably faster, thudding against her chest, and it was hard for Rory to figure out if she was imagining it, or if the steady, pounding rhythm could be heard for real.   
  
"And a wedding of some sort," Tristan had said. A wedding.   
  
Weddings.  
  
"Oh my...oh my," Rory said aloud again.  
  
Suddenly, Rory Gilmore was more afraid than she had ever been in her life.  
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"Rory?" Lucy asked, poking her head around the doorframe. Rory jerked her head up and winced when it connected with the back of the chair.   
  
"Yeah, Luce?"  
  
"Mr. Dugrey called. He wants to know..." Lucy paused, blushing a bit.   
  
"Wants to know...?" Rory prompted, sighing.  
  
"He wants to know if you got the message on the table and if you want...two hotel rooms or just one," Lucy asked.  
  
"If he hasn't already hung up, can you just buzz it in here?" Rory asked. Lucy nodded and quickly returned to her desk. Moments later, the beeping tones of the phone alerted Rory that Tristan had, in fact, stayed on the line.  
  
"Hello?" she spoke into the receiver, supressing a grin that came with the heavy pounding of her heart at the same time.  
  
"Hey babe. What's goin on?" Tristan sounded distant, but Rory reminded herself that he was probably using his cell phone while driving back to the office. She also tried to ignore the "babe" that was casually inserted in his greeting.  
  
"Well, I'M at work," Rory said, laughing. "Ah, about the one room or two room thing...we're, ah....how about we take two?" she told him haltingly, nervous. She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Lucy noticing her rising blush and Rory stuck her tongue out--Lucy laughed more.  
  
"Two? Okay."  
  
There was a pause, a heartbeat, and Rory's brow furrowed.  
  
"That's all? Okay?"  
  
"Yeah, Ror, okay. Commonly used as a question or an answer, often giving consent," Tristan fired off and Rory hated the smirk she knew he was sporting.  
  
"Okay," she repeated slowly.  
  
"Okay. O...k...a..."  
  
"Tristan, I know how to spell okay," Rory ground out angrily. She could just feeeeel her blood pressure rising as a car horn sounded on Tristan's end of the phone and what sounded like a garage door opened.  
  
"Okay," he shot back cheekily, "so what's the problem?"  
  
"Well...why is this two-room thing okay?"  
  
"Shouldn't it be?"  
  
"Well, yes, it should be."  
  
"And once again we come back to the part where Rory is confusing the hell out of her poor little business partner."  
  
"Oh, you're obviously the victim here, Tristan."  
  
"Rory, it's not as if you're exactly being victimized either," Tristan told her as if speaking to a three year old, Rory wondered when she heard a door close slowly.   
  
"Well aren't I?!" Rory practically yelled into the phone.  
  
"What's your problem, Rory? This can't be about the hotel."  
  
"Maybe it is about the hotel, Tristan."  
  
"And the part about us sleeping together last night doesn't figure into this at all, I suppose?" he asked, his voice grating on her nerves as she heard the mocking undertone.  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?" Rory kicked her desk in anger and winced, but didn't say anything.  
  
"It means, Rory," Tristan said, walking into her office and shutting the door, effectively scaring Rory to the point that she dropped the receiver and didn't even notice, "that our making love last night has something to do with your decision to have two rooms. I don't quite know why--but I'm almost certain it has to do with you being scared," he told her, taking slow strides up to her desk.  
  
"Scared?" she repeated, choking on her own thoughts.  
  
"Scared."  
  
"I've never been scared a day in my life," she blatantly lied, standing and coming around the desk to face his challenge.  
  
"Fine. Then tell me that you waking up in my bed didn't scare you."  
  
"Not at all," she shot grudgingly.  
  
"And me leaving you that note this morning didn't scare you."  
  
"Why would it?"  
  
Tristan just bit his lip and nodded, looking at her mysteriously before speaking again.  
  
"And the one room wouldn't scare you?"  
  
"Hardly!" she scoffed, hoping her acting skills were at least enough to convince him. Tristan bracketed her against the desk, pinning Rory in with strong arms. Her breath hitched, and the feral look in his eyes burned.  
  
"Then your reaction to this shouldn't scare you either," he growled, possessing her lips with his own, plundering, not asking before he delved into the velvet of her mouth, demanding with his tongue, a duel, and Rory fought back, curling her hands into little fists in his shirt. Tristan, with Rory's back arched against the desk, nestled one leg in between hers, and the shocking intimacy shook them both as he broke off and Rory gulped in air when he transferred his affections to her smooth neck, nipping softly up to her ear lobe when she gasped, going back once again to control her mouth, and they fought each other, Rory's teeth roughly skimming his lips, Tristan pulling her tongue into his mouth as she tangled her hands in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him with her away from the desk to the corner, where they wouldn't be seen, sinking them both down into a settee. His hands moved quickly up and down her sides, cupping her breasts and skimming her neck before gripping her waist again, she craned her neck to the side as he ravaged the smooth, swan-like skin, trailing down to her collar bone, dipping beneath the collar of her blouse, her hands clutching the fabric of his shirt, bucking against him, out of control as his lips kissed the sensitive, silken flesh of the swell of her breast.   
  
"Tristan," Rory breathed, gasping for air, and he lifted his head, the fire not melting the ice-blue of his eyes. Tristan returned to her lips, kissing her, the violent passion quelled into mere waves after the storm, but still there as Rory traced his face with her hands, breathing air from him, gasping as he filled her mouth with his taste, one last sweep, and broke away, standing up. Rory could only stare as he straightened his shirt and pants, and then she stood, skimming her fingers through her hair and then brushing back his own, smoothing it before she lightly touched his face, and shrunk away as if burned.  
  
"I'll go down and get the car, tell Lucy to pack for you, and then we'll drop by Mira's before our flight," Tristan told her, and Rory blanched inwardly at the...the sickening normalcy that was heavy in his casual remarks.  
  
"Okay," she said quietly as Tristan walked out, his long strides taking him from her office quickly. Slowly, as if under water, Rory crossed back to her desk, pushed a trembling finger to the intercom button.  
  
"Lucy, will you put some stuff in a suitcase? The usual...two suits, the two different dresses, 2 pairs of shoes and....Lucy? Make one of those two dresses the black one, would you?" Rory added hastily, feeling suddenly like wearing the strapless black silk with the risque slit up to her thigh, though she almost never did, since she wasn't one for looking flashy in the first place. Lucy, however, didn't comment, since she had seen Tristan walk out mere moments before.  
  
"I'll do that. And Tristan just buzzed up, he's waiting."  
  
"Okay then."  
  
Gathering her things, Rory looked around her office, eyes landing on the settee for a fleeting moment before flying away. She backed out the door, flipping the lightswitch softly.   
  
"He's ... so wrong," she murmured to herself. "That's what scares me the most."  
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Hm. Okay, I have to know: how was that? I'm in some serious pain, sitting here, since I've been so engrossed in the rest of my life and was on a bit of the roll with this chapter and so I didn't get up to take my meds like I was SUPPOSED to, like, 3 hours ago. Tell me...was it worth it? Pleeeeeeease review...normally i'm not such a review whore, but I must know! = ) Annest 


	11. Lasagne

Author's doped up rantings: Huzzah! Oh, you people are the BEST. I swear. Anyway, I hope you like this part as much. Read on!--Annest  
  
Oh, and this is for Luce, should she read this anytime soon: yes, this is to show that aha! I have updated, like, 3 times more often than you, and my writing is not even close to comparable to yours--yours is so much better. How can you leave the rest of us alone without another one of your awesome stories? Why??  
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"What do you want?" Tristan said, peeking over his menu casually. Rory blanched at his casual comment, but she had sworn to ignore what had happened earlier. Swinging her hair back over one shoulder, she bit her lip and looked contemplatively at the menu.  
  
"I don't know....haven't really thought about it."  
  
"That's okay," a voice said, and suddenly there was a third party, an energetic middle-aged woman. Tristan rose and greeted her with a light kiss on her cheek, and she swatted him away playfully to turn her attention to Rory. "So, Rory, how is he behaving?"  
  
"Oh, he's getting along, Mira," Rory said with a crooked grin. "Although his behavior last night was a little crazy," in her periphial vision, Tristan's face visibly paled and the little devil on her shoulder egged her on to say "and then this morning, he wasn't exactly on his best behavior, he was acting like a guy, of course," and he choked at her words, quickly disguising it behind a 'cough'.  
  
"Yes, I'm sure he was. So, what will you two have?" Mira asked, smiling wide as she grabbed a pad of paper out of her chef's coat pocket.  
  
"Well, oh chef goddess, I will have the lasagne, because your lasagne is better than sex itself," this time Rory choked, but hid hers behind a laugh, "and my darling here," his words were secretly puncuated by a swift kick to Rory's shins under the table, to which he was answered with two to his, "will take angel hair pasta and a small chicken ceasar salad. Oh, and I'll have a scotch, and she'll have coffee."   
  
Mira rolled her eyes with a laugh. "You know, Tristan, you've been coming to my humble little establishment for all seven years that it's been open. You don't have to charm the chef any longer."  
  
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, love of my life. I charm because I care." Mira laughed and walked off toward the kitchen. Tristan and Rory waited til she was out of earshot to start in.  
  
"A little crazy?" he growled.  
  
"Better than sex?" she said in disbelief.  
  
"Well if you can't admit that we had sex, then why should I admit that her lasagne isn't better than sleeping with you?" he shot back, leaning across the table.  
  
"Ah, so it is?" Rory asked with a impish grin, crossing her arms on the table top and returning his movement by leaning toward him.  
  
"I never said that, Gilmore, but what if it was?" The proximity of their faces made Rory shiver, and his breath on her lips resulted in Rory unconciously darting her tongue out to lick her lips, and Tristan groaned inwardly.  
  
"I would be surprised," came breathlessly.   
  
"I wouldn't be at all," he whispered, closing the space to gently capture her lips in his. Rory felt his hand with hers, grasping his fingers in hers softly, intertwining them as his lips probed hers softly. His tongue lightly pleaded entry into her mouth, and Rory parted her lips on a sigh, reveling in the feel of his other hand softly moving through her hair, holding her close. Unlike that morning, when their confrontation had been violently passionate, Tristan was every bit the gentleman...well, as much as could be expected when he was spending even more time exploring the recesses of Rory's mouth. Rory grinned as they broke apart.  
  
A throat cleared, and Tristan looked away from their locked gazes to see Mira, whose expression matched that of the woman's whom he had just kissed.  
  
"Well well, should I alert my husband, your seceretaries and everyone else who was in on the pool that you two are finally together? Although I will have to have the official date, so that we can figure out who guessed correctly. Not to mention we'll have to do the go-between with the infamous Stars Hollow pool," Mira said with a laugh. Tristan groaned.  
  
"Not to mention, Mira, that we should alert Marsha at GQ and El and Jane at People that Tristan is no longer one of the world's 50 most eligible bachelors," Rory teased.  
  
"Why would Elliot care?" Tristan asked with his brow raised.  
  
"Well, he IS going to have to write the upcoming article anyway...not to mention the fact that it's coming up in about a month and a half," Mira said with a big smile. Another groan from Tristan.   
  
"Ror, you want to come back here? I finished the office and thought you would like to take a look," Mira said, raising her eyebrow and gesturing toward the back of the restaurant. Rory, with a bit of a questioning gaze, nodded and got up from the table. She locked eyes with Tristan before moving from her seat.  
  
"I'll be right back?" she said softly. He nodded in return, sending silent messages with his eyes. Rory bit her lip, her heart pounding again, inexplicably, and nervous. She trailed after Mira, suddenly feeling tight on the inside, as if her heart was contracting.  
  
"Well?" Mira asked, opening her gesture to include the entire office the two women had just entered. Rory gazed around once, twice, and then cocked an eyebrow.  
  
"Nothing has changed one bit."  
  
"I know," the elder said with a wicked grin before launching right to the point. "So, you slept with him?" Rory's jaw dropped.  
  
"I most certai--of course--how could you--" she sputtered, blushing, before giving in with resignation. "How did you know?"  
  
"It could have been the 'better than sex' comment. Normal Tristan, I know, but your eyes tell all, dear," Mira said, putting a comforting hand on Rory's cheek before laughing.   
  
"My eyes?" Rory said, the object in question widening in thought.  
  
"Yes, the Gilmore eyes. And you sat there and looked at him and were just completely normal and your eyes practically shouted 'damn you're good in bed. I want you. I think I'm in love with you'." Again, a red-faced sputter.   
  
"I never said he was good in bed!"  
  
"He's that good?" Mira said, leaning back, a little shocked. Rory bit her lip and nodded, a tiny laugh escaping her taut grin.  
  
"Oh god, girl, you're in the big time now." Eyes closed, Rory leaned back against the doorjamb, taking in Mira's silence. Warm lips closed over a sensitive spot on the base of her neck and Rory jumped in the air, shocked by the sudden maelstrom of fever that the simple gesture brought on.   
  
Turning around, her eyes connected with Tristan's, and he grinned. She swatted playfully at his shoulder and turned once again. "Nice of you to come see Mira's office."  
  
"Nothing's changed about it at all, darling," Tristan said, tweaking Rory's ear like an older brother would an annoying younger sibling on his way to Mira. Mira, in turn, grinned cheekily and stood away from the desk she had leaned on.   
  
"Yes, I know," obviously.  
  
"Of cousre something's changed," Rory spoke. "See, before there were two lovely ladies in this office. Now, there're two lovely ladies and a real jerk," came the retort.  
  
"Oh?" Tristan tensed, ready to spar. Mira grinned knowingly at the two and moved sideways from the room. Neither one really noticed when the door closed quietly. They waited a beat, their gazes connecting, Tristan's sly grin meeting Rory's frowning lips from across the space, and the time drew on, perfectly still. Rory's heart was frozen in the second and burning at the affect he had over her from four feet away. Then suddenly she was up against him, Tristan holding her tight, bracketing her up against the wall she stood by, shocking, and he gazed down into her eyes, blazing a million messages into her heart before crushing his lips to hers. A flashfire of emotions and movements consumed them in seconds. Tristan's hands grasped her hair, twisting, but Rory didn't notice, jumping a little when his lips trailed from their assault on hers to her neck, collarbone, and she was bent back gently, levered over his arm that held her, as he went on, from the collarbone to the V of her plain white silk blouse. Rory held his hips against hers, straining, and whimpered, pulling him with one hand at the small of Tristan's back, one hand wrapping in his already-tousled hair. Her lips, neck, were suddenly devoid of his kiss, and another groan from both of them when he nipped at the hot spot between her cheekbone and ear lobe and Rory bucked her hips against his, almost crying out. There was nothing either wanted more than to be alone, together, and Tristan almost opted to lay Rory down on the couch, the chairs, the floor, anywhere, to be with her, and Rory's passionate messages she conveyed relayed exactly what her reaction would be. Tristan grinned against her mouth when they almost tripped over the footstool, their urgency to be with each other seemingly unstoppable.  
  
A knock on the door, Mira cautiously opening it to see them jumping apart as if burned. Rory blushed, straigtened her blouse and skirt, while Tristan grinned and shrugged, running a hand through his blonde hair. Mira matched the sly grin she saw.  
  
"Your food's ready, you two," she said.   
  
There was another groan when Mira held the door open, a soft voice for only Rory's ears.   
  
"It'll--don't worry, Gilmore. There'll be another time, soon, where nothing will come between us. You can count on it."  
  
"I'm afraid," was mumbled, almost incoherently.  
  
"Don't be...it's just me," he said, his lips causing a flutter of feelings inside of her as they brushed against her ear.  
  
"That's what I'm afraid of. What if it shouldn't be you that I..." she trailed off.  
  
"Are you two lovesick little teenagers coming, or should I let your food get cold?" Mira asked, arms akimbo.  
  
"It should be. It will be."  
  
It is, Rory thought. It is.  
  
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Author's sincerest apology: Well! How was that? Took me long enough. Sheesh. More terrible things happening lately, so hey, haven't had a ton of time. But honestly, I wish I could've done better to get this updated for you guys. Thanks! You're all just plain awesome. I'll try to update again soon. Ciao! --Annest 


	12. Hey...so, where do we go from here?

Author's note: Well...it would be a shame to leave you stuck there. I've been accused of being a "tease"--how dare you! = ) Calico, here's your update. I'm sorry it's so short...it's...well gah! I can't write too much! I have a life! Honest! I have a date tonite! (That's how bad it is--I'm delaying getting ready for a date just to write fanfiction. Sheesh!) Well, like I said, it's short. And I'm sorry. *Sigh* But 10 more reviews and I'll post more tomorrow. I'm a feedback whore, yes, it's true, but whatever you do, just read on!--Annest  
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"Whoa," Rory breathed as the door swung open on its own, revealing a hotel suite that was almost five times larger than any she had ever stayed in. Her jaw stayed dropped as Tristan pushed her in to the room and laughed, kicking the door shut gently with his foot as he carried both of their suitcases. "This is gorgeous, Tristan. And at the same time, even our surprisingly good budget can't possibly cover this room for a week," Rory told him, turning to face Tristan as he set down the luggage.  
  
In return he nodded before crossing to the wet bar, taking a bottle of wine off of the rack and uncorking it. Pouring it into a small glass, his gaze connected with hers. "It's mine," he said simply. "Do you want any?" A gesture with the red-liquid contents of the glass didn't distract Rory.  
  
"Yours?" she said, raising her eyebrows, and then sighing. "Of course it is," she said in resignation. Tristan took a step back to her.   
  
"What does that mean?" he countered.  
  
"Everything's yours," she said quietly. A quiet sigh again, and Rory turned away, once again cheerful as she opened first a door close to the sofa. Peeking inside she saw an immaculate bathroom with a full-sized whirlpool and shower, three sinks, a towel heater and everything imaginable, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and a beveled glass window that let the late afternoon light inside. A few steps away, the next doorway, which didn't have an actual door, instead it opened up into a beautiful bedroom, complete with a king-size bed on a raised platform, covered in dark navy silk that perfectly matched the decor.  
  
"Rory?" he questioned loudly, his voice wafting in from the kitchen.  
  
"I...ah, yes?" Rory answered, peeking around the doorway. Her heartbeat quickened annoying at the look of Tristan, his blonde hair tousled perfectly, tanned skin showing from where he had casually left the top two buttons of his shirt undone.  
  
"Do you want to take a short nap before dinner? I thought we'd stop by the restaurant of a friend of mine, maybe take in another show before tomorrow, since we probably won't have much free time once work gets started." His head was down the whole time, and Rory lost sight of Tristan when he ducked down to pluck a bag of unmistakable Kona Gold coffee from the freezer. "I promise, you can have some later," he laughed when she practically attacked him.  
  
"Sure, I guess so," Rory answered, grinning grudgingly at his smiling face. "Yeah, Tris, I think I'll take a short nap. What time is it?" Turning around, Tristan caught sight of the silver kitchen clock.   
  
"It looks like it's..."  
  
"Aha!!!" Rory grabbed the coveted coffee from Tristan's loosened grip.   
  
"Oh no you don't, Gilmore. No coffee until later." A quick side tackle proved just the thing to wrestle the bag away from her grasp. Rory lashed out teasingly and Tristan suddenly had her back against the laquered counter, holding the coffee up in triumph.   
  
"Dang...dangit," Rory said, unexpectedly out of breath. Trying for composure she ducked underneath his arm and slipped away a few feet. "You...you keep doing...that, Tristan," she said huskily.   
  
To her retreating back, Tristan's answer was quiet and equally breathless. And even more hopeful than she had ever heard. "And you keep doing that, Rory. You keep doing that."  
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It wasn't bad waking up next to Tristan. His arms were strong, his breath warm against her neck, his hold on her waist welcome. Rory's hand tangled langurioussly in the blonde tufts of his hair, twisting softly as his breath awakened her.   
  
"Morning," he murmured softly, still very asleep.  
  
"G'morn..." Rory started to respond, a hairs breadth away from laying her lips gently on his when she realized where she was and who was with her.  
  
Well, the inner Lorelei said, you knew exactly who you were with.  
  
"Tristan, it's not morning," Rory said not-so-delicately into his ear. "C'mon!" She tried to roll away from him but one lean arm swung out to pull her back to him.  
  
"Mmm," Tristan moaned, nuzzling his lips into Rory's neck. There goes that heartbeat again, Gilmore, she told herself.  
  
"Tristan, wake up," Rory said, fighting her way away from Tristan and rolling to the other side of the bed.  
  
Thump.  
  
Rolling off of the bed, if one wanted to be technical.   
  
But at least it woke him up.   
  
"Rory?" he said, two piercing blue eyes, full of laughter, peeked at her over the top of the rumpled duvet cover.  
  
"Don't even ask," she told Tristan between set teeth.  
  
"I wasn't going to! Honest!" Still, Rory took a clean shot at Tristan with a nearby pillow before unceremoniously pulling herself off of the carpet and heading toward the bathroom.  
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A half an hour later Rory appeared, brushing her slightly-damp hair back into a black barrette. Her black sleeveless wool dress hung lightly on her body, a perfect Audrey Hepburn picture framed in the bedroom doorway. Tristan's throat went as dry as the Sahara desert when she walked out, though he had seen her so many times before. He had seen her in perfect bridal white, even, and there was no doubt in his mind she was beautiful. But it was the pure simplicity that just WAS Rory; that was what took his breath away.  
  
"Are you ready to go?" she asked quietly, also a little breathless as she caught sight of his crisp french blue shirt and classy gray slacks.   
  
"You know, I...mm...you look beautiful tonight, Ror," he told her, grabbing keys and wallet off of the hall table, swinging them around in one hand and grabbing one of Rory's hands in the other.   
  
"Mmhm...thanks," Rory murmured softly, again keeping her voice quiet enough that Tristan had to bend toward her to hear it, and had to take in the feeling of being so near to her.  
  
"Anything for the woman of my dreams," Tristan said gallantly, shutting the double doors of the suite as the couple stepped out into the hallway.  
  
"Funny...I didn't see my mother around here."  
  
"Gilmore, if there was something funny there, I think I failed to catch it."  
  
"Don't worry. I'm sure it's not the first thing you've failed at, Tristan," Rory told him, still laughing at her own private joke.  
  
"Yes, but I don't intend to fail again," he said, with the slightest tinge of huskiness in his smooth voice. Rory's skin prickled where his hand touched the back of her neck. Out of a spontaneous...something...Rory's heartbeat tapped a rhythm that egged her silently on, and her lips softly landed on the nape of Tristan's neck. He jumped, she felt him.  
  
"Hey," he said quietly.   
  
"Hey," she answered back, staring at the back of his head as the elevator doors opened to admit other passengers. But he still had her arms wrapped securely around him, her weigh pressed securely against his. Around the third floor he tilted his head back and she felt his warm breath on her neck, his lips just at her earlobe.  
  
"I...ah...mm."  
  
"I'm sorry?" Rory laughed teasingly.  
  
"I...I think that I like you, Rory Gilmore," Tristan said, pressing a kiss to her hand before wrapping it safely by his waist again.   
  
That's good, she sighed silently, because I think I love you, Tristan DuGrey.   
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GAH! So...short! That makes me mad at myself. Anyway, I feel terrible for this, but I feel like I have to. I'll update as soon as I get 10 reviews. Ack! I'm now a feedback slut! WHY?!--Annest 


	13. Oklahoma! Where the...uh...

Author's tired musings: OK, OK, once again, here's an update. Sorry it's really super short, but there's good troriness!! really good troriness! I just can't bring myself to take forever to write unless nobody else is here, and there are currently 11 other people in my house, so that DOES hamper it a little bit, eh? = ) Anyway, ten reviews & I update. *Sigh* Such a slut, such a slut...ha! Read on--Annest  
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"That was..." Rory trailed off, glancing back over her shoulder. Tristan laughed and rubbed his hand quickly up and down her arm.   
  
"Amazing? Fantastic? Remarkable? Talented beyond the wildest stretch of imagination?" he supplied with mockingly wide eyes.  
  
"Well gosh dangit, Tristan, you took me to see Oklahoma!!"  
  
"Where the wind comes sweeping 'cross the plain," he stated obviously. Rory, in turn, whacked his shoulder with her baguette-style handbag.   
  
"Where the...well okay, I forget the rest of the words," she admitted grudgingly. Tristan laughed, smiling down at her as they continued to walk across the street. "Although I did like it," Rory claimed. "It's a great revival of the show, really."  
  
"Ror, you slept during the whole second act, I think."  
  
"I was looking at the insides of my eyelids."  
  
"Exactly, Lorelei Gilmore, that's exactly what I'm talking about."  
  
"Did you just call me my mother?"  
  
"I think...you just definitely confused me, Rory," Tristan finished with a grin. "Well, where do you want to go?" He scanned the street and considered the bistros, most of them already packed.  
  
"There's a place...my mother and I used to go when we came up here. I think it's...it's only a block away from our hotel, actually, if I'm right," Rory told him. With a resigned sigh, Tristan beckoned to the street in front of him.  
  
"Lead on, then, oh Gilmore."  
  
"That's oh mighty one to you, buddy," she told him with a laugh, skipping a few steps off before he caught her around the waist and swung her back. The angel light touch of his hand before he let go made her heart skip a beat...and a beat...and a beat.  
  
"Oh...ah...yeah, anyway, shall we?" she murmured, still careful to stay a little apart from him, yet in love enough to stay one step closer than she ought to have.  
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"I'm eating with my hands."  
  
"And you're a Gilmore. What makes you think that the rest of the world should do it, Ror?" Tristan asked with a grin.  
  
"Because that's what you're supposed to do, Tristan!" she exclaimed, laughing, and she kicked him in the tiny space underneath the table.  
  
"Look, woman," he began, "I came to a restaurant I didn't know to sit on pillows on the floor and eat food even I don't know how to pronounce, and you want me to eat this said food with my fingers?" Tristan balked.  
  
Rory waited a minute before her sparse rebuttal. "Woman?!? You just...you just called me...you just called me woman!" she sputtered indignantly.  
  
"Well aren't you one?" he offered patronizingly.  
  
"Well I cert..."  
  
"Because last time I looked, you certainly were," Tristan shot back with a leer.   
  
Noodles, slick and slimy noodles, landed on his perfectly tanned nose.  
  
"Can we not talk about that? Or I'll start throwing the ginger and peanut chicken at you, Tristan." Rory could almost hear the certainty in his brain, and she braced herself for the argument as the conversation wordlessly switched from playful to serious.  
  
"No, Rory," Tristan started, very slowly, "I think we ought to talk about it."  
  
"I don't want to," she told him resolutely.  
  
"We have t--"  
  
"No we do--"  
  
"Yes, Rory Gilmore, we will talk about it," Tristan said forcefully, taking her chin in one hand and leveling her gaze to his. "We can't not talk about it."  
  
"What is there to talk about, Tristan? This is great. You're great in bed, is that what you want to hear? And making out with you is fabulous. Okay? Now you can move on to your next victim, whoever it...and i mean that quite literally...may be," she ranted close to his face. Tristan jerked back a little as if stunned before resuming his position.  
  
"First off, Rory, I didn't want to hear that," he said as he was interrupted by a scoff. "Not that I minded, of course, but that's not what I was talking about."  
  
"Then what were you talking about, Tris?" Rory asked with a weary sigh. "Because I don't even know if I want to know."  
  
"Rory...I've been with plenty of women in the past," Tristan started before being cut off again by Rory, who slammed her napkin down oh-so-politely.  
  
"Oh, this is enlightening. I think I might just turn green any moment," she shot at him. Since it seemed to be his only option, Tristan held her face in his hands again and forced her to look at him.  
  
"No, Rory, I'm serious. But you...that was...that was the most amazing night of my life," he admitted softly, gazing into her eyes. "And I can't say that I had never wanted to do that before. I've been attracted to you for so long, Rory, that I've forgotten what it's like to not be. Everything I've said and done lately is for you and you only. Everytime I wake up, I think of you, everytime I come into the office it's you I look for, everytime I hear your voice my heart beats a million miles a second. I never stop wanting you, the way you feel with me, the way I feel when my arms are around you, it's unmistak Rory. I've never felt this way with anyone. And I don't know how we can work it out, but I want to try. I don't know what, but I'm sure we can do something. I don't mind if we date or we live together or what, just as long as I can be with you, that's what's most important," he finished, grasping her hands in his, trying to lift her downcast gaze so he could look her in the eye.   
  
Finally, Rory's eyes met Tristan's, full of tears. "That's one of the sweetest things I've ever heard, Tristan. But I won't always be the most important, even if I do want to be with you too. I guess that before I wouldn't mind, because it's always been the same way for me. Except," she trailed off, biting her quivering bottom lip. Tristan slipped up a finger to brush away the tear that fell from her eye onto her petal soft cheek.  
  
"Except?" he prompted gently, his blue eyes finally catching hers in a real connection like they had before everything seemed to change.  
  
"Except...now I'm in love with you, Tristan, and that just changes everything. I'm in love with you, don't you see?" she cried softly, pulling herself up off of the floor and stumbling to the door, out into the chilling wind of the city and away from Tristan.  
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Author's note: okay, look, ten reviews and I'll update tomorrow. Sorry to be such a terrible person...but it's late! gimme a break, wilya? = ) Chuse! (German slang for bye...n'rmind) --Annest 


	14. Add an Irishman into the mix, and poof!

Author's...whatever: Look! I updated! And I'll have you know it's shorter than my best friend's attention span. Whose fault is this, you might ask? CALICO!!! Dang you, I updated! And it's short! This makes me want to fall over. In fact, I would, but that would take time away from writing, right? = ) Anyway, read on...please?--Annest  
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"Damnit," Tristan growled, having paid the check and slipping out of the quiet restaurant. He looked up and down the sidewalk for Rory, trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive woman. "Where the heck did she go?" he asked to no one in particular, pacing furiously.  
  
"I ought to...where would she be?" he asked again. A thought hit him, and he reached into his pocket to grab his cell phone, punching the second button, Rory's number on his speed dial. Waiting...waiting...as Tristan tapped his foot the phone connected and began to ring. But to his dismay, seconds later his left pocket began to ring in sync with his phone.   
  
Obviously, the little treasure hidden in his pocket was none other than Rory's cell phone. "Of course," he sighed wearily, glancing at the lit-up screen, blinking his number.  
  
"Okay, she doesn't have her cell phone, I know that much," Tristan said as he started off down the sidewalk, talking quietly to himself. Rounding the corner, he saw the brightly lit lobby of the hotel, limos and cars swarming in front of it, no doubt delivering passengers who had been enjoying New York night life.   
  
"Good evening, Mr. DuGrey," the bellman said, tipping his hat as he opened the door to let Tristan through. Tristan nodded his thanks and continued on into the lavish, tasteful lobby. There was a good chance that Rory was upstairs, there was also a good chance that, knowing her to be a Gilmore, she had taken the car straight to her mother's house in Stars Hollow. Either way, Tristan knew they would have to finish talking very soon.   
  
O'Haras was the hotel lounge, a well-respected establishment whose owners Tristan was well aquainted with. In the matter of encountering a possibly-hostile Gilmore or downing a scotch or two in Rogan O'Hara's place, Tristan opted for the soothing liquid instead of the volatile lover everytime.   
  
"I'll take a scotch on the rocks," Tristan told the bartender, who looked rather young to be behind the oaken bar of any lounge, but Tristan didn't really care. As soon as it was in his hands he took a first burning drink, waiting for the soothing feeling as it went down.  
  
"Tristan!" a big, burly man exclaimed, bursting from two swinging doors. Before he knew it Tristan was wrapped in a giant bearhug.   
  
"Mmph!" he groaned, taking a look at the man. "Rogan!" he answered in kind, clapping the older man on the back. With a laugh Tristan sat back down on the barstool and took a good look at his grandfather's good friend.  
  
"And what are you up to, DuGrey?" the Irishman asked brusquely, taking a glass of his own and filling it from the water tap. Tristan's countenance immediately changed, and he could tell it was obvious something was wrong. "What've you come t'my place for?"  
  
"Mm..." Tristan moaned with a wry, half smile.   
  
"That bad, eh?" the elder questioned, leaning on his crossed arms.  
  
"Oh, Rogan, it's so much worse than bad, you know that?"  
  
"Aha!" Rogan stuck a finger as if to say 'Eureka!' "It'll be woman troubles then, I see? Seems last time I heard from your grandfather he said you did carry around a passle of...what was the word Janlan used? Bimbos, I think," he informed Tristan with a smile.  
  
"First of all, Rogan," Tristan started.  
  
"Now, don't you go 'first of all, Rogan'ing me, boy-o!" Rogan told him, ruffling Tristan's hair and making the younger man finally crack a smile. "Sure and it's a woman who's sent you packing down to O'Hara's, don't think I don't know. So who is this lass who has you in a front and center seat in front of a glass of scotch?"  
  
"Wauoowih Geehmow," Tristan moaned into his crossed arms. Rogan instantly grabbed him by the now-tousled hair and lifted up his face. "Rory Gilmore," Tristan said again, this time loud and clear.  
  
"Aha, and will this Rory Gilmore be a blonde bimbo too?" Rogan asked knowingly. Tristan's blue eyes shut again, but opened before Rogan could once again give him the awakening hair-pulling treatment.   
  
"No...and that's the worst of it, Rogan. She's my business partner," Tristan explained shortly, rolling his bright blue eyes.  
  
"So the problem is that you two work together? Or have you gone and gotten feelings for the girl?" The burly Irishman sympathized and then, perceptively, "Ah, and so you have, DuGrey, and that's the mess of it?"  
  
"Oh lord, yes it is," Tristan told him, downing the majority of the scotch in one burning gulp. "And she has too, but it doesn't seem to work." Rogan eyed the now-empty glass Tristan had slammed back down on the countertop and then the blue-eyed younger man who sat in front of him.  
  
"Well then, why aren't you with her making it work?" he said brashly, coming out from behind the counter and practically lifting Tristan off of the stool like a mother dog lifts puppies. "Go on, boy, and if this girl is what you want, go after her, DuGrey," Rogan said obviously, pushing him out the door. "An' tell your grandfather I've been saying hello, will ya?" Tristan nodded and shook Rogan's big hand in his before setting off across the lobbies to the elevators.  
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The hotel apartment was silent, the air still as Tristan softly unlocked the large double doors. Rory's jacket was laying on the couch, her purse dropped on the floor, but she was nowhere around. Quietly, Tristan walked into the bedroom, expecting to find her asleep on the ocean of a bed, then into the bathroom, then the second bedroom and into the office. His heart beat a drowning cadence as he continued to search for someone who was not there. It wasn't like Rory to disappear, and there was no way for her to leave, since he had the keys to the car. At a momentary loss as to what to do next, Tristan sat down to rest his head in his hands.  
  
Telling Rory all of that had been such a stretch. Admitting his feelings to her had taken him forever, even if she had shared those feelings. It was terrible to think that he could be rejected, because, while that was thinkable and even possible, he thought with chagrin, he knew that Rory was what he wanted more than anything in life. He told her so, he told her that life with her was what he wanted to wake up to every morning. And yet he had told her, and Rory had bit her lip and cried, though Tristan knew she tried so hard to be brave. If she was there he would take her into his arms, hold her tightly, protect her from everything else but them, tell her he...  
  
He had told Rory he liked her. He told Rory he liked waking up next to her, liked being with her all the time, liked everything about her. But what he hadn't told her was that he loved her.  
  
"Oh god, how could I screw up so badly?" Tristan growled in a low voice, cursing himself silently. A movement at the french glass doors called his self-depreciating attention to the balcony, where a black flutter eluded the wind. Getting up from the couch, Tristan advanced across the carpeted floor and up the two steps, grasping the handle and quickly opening the door to find out what was beyond the glass.  
  
"Rory?" he gasped quietly, not from surprise, but the shock of the cold air and what he saw. It was as if someone had taken out his heart and stomped on it, and that someone's name was, as always, Rory Gilmore.  
  
"Tristan," Rory said his name as a statement, her red eyes and still-rolling tears making another statement in addition to her words.   
  
"What in hell are you doing out here in the cold? Are you crazy?" The cold wind and colder reception made his question seem all the more bitter. Biting back a sob, Rory choked on the sharp retort she gave.  
  
"No, Tristan," she told him, turning a cold gaze to Tristan, "I just live for the enjoyment watching my own fingers turn blue gives me. Not to mention the added entertainment of seeing my breath freeze in the air," Rory told him tartly, glaring, hurt.  
  
"Listen, Rory," he said, angry at her, angry at himself for not saying what he should have, "I don't care what you're thinking right now, since it's certainly homicidal. But you have to understand, Ror," he told her, taking both of her raised, ready-to-strike fists in one hand and holding them away, backing her against the iron rail, his words no-nonsense and forcing. "I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression back there, Rory. I...guess I said something...or I didn't say something that I should have," he tried to explain. Again, Rory's eyes filled with tears, and she struggled fruitlessly to get out of Tristan's grasp.  
  
"What impression did you mean to give me, Tristan? That I would just be your girlfriend until you got tired of me, Tristan? Is that what you meant to say? That I would be next week's trash? Do you expect me to just cry hysterically and tell you again that I'm in love with you and that I want to live happily ever after until you decide not to anymore? Is that what you want from me? Because I just don't think I can give you that!" she exploded hysterically, sobs punctuating every other word.  
  
Tristan's eyes were soft as he lifted her chin to level her eyes with his. "Rory," he said huskily, "How do you feel about me?"  
  
"It doesn't matter what I--" she told him, trying to turn away, but he silenced her with a long finger against her quivering lips.  
  
"Do you love me, Rory Gilmore?"  
  
"Mm..." she nodded, barely perceptable.  
  
"Say it, Rory. Tell me you love me," Tristan demanded softly.  
  
"I can't!" she argued, like a lost child.  
  
"Tell me you love me," he breathed against her lips, coaxing confidently while his heart beat an erratic, hopeful rhythm.  
  
"I love you," she sobbed softly, just as Tristan's lips captured hers in a loving, passionate kiss, softer than any one they had ever shared. Their lips melded as he held her close, as she twined her arms around his neck, pulling each other close to drink the other in as fast as possible, as sweetly as possible.  
  
"Rory," he said on an inward gasp, pulling a hairs breadth apart from her soft mouth as she moaned again. "Rory Gilmore, I love you," Tristan told her, wiping the last tear away from her eyes, only to see the tears start again, but a mixture of bittersweet drops fell. He captured each with his lips, raining the angel soft kisses as he dried her tears and grasped her close again to return his mouth to hers. "I'll never let you go." 


	15. Shoes and promptness

Author's Note: Yep, guys, this is the end of it. I'm glad you all have stuck with me through this whole thing and enjoyed it so much! Thank you especially to Calico, who has said "hey, update already, duh!" since, like, chapter 2 = ) You've been a big help. This one's gonna be short again, ya'll, but I'm giving you one final dose and then moving on to my next story...don't worry, I already have it started, hopefully the first chapter will be up by the end of the week. Well, read on!--Annest  
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"Where are my shoes?" the muffled yell came from deep within Tristan's walk-in closet. A heap of clothing was already lying on the floor across the room, dresses strewn everywhere but in the suitcase where they were supposed to go. Tristan narrowly missed being mauled by one of his Armani loafers as Rory's search for shoes continued, but he casually sat on the bed and looked at the time.  
  
"Rory, babe, we have to go soon if you want to get there for dinner. It's four o'clock...your mom said to be at your parents at six, so we do need to get going really soon," Tristan told her, leaning back and casting a glance at his already-packed single leather suitcase. And then at Rory's haphazardly half-filled three. "Good lord, woman," he said under his breath, almost silently.  
  
"I heard that!" came the muffled reply, along with more of Tristan's shoes.  
  
"Rory?" he asked, and without a response, went on, "why are you looking in MY closet for YOUR shoes?"  
  
"Because...mmmph!" Rory struggled out from the dark back of the closet to explain, "they're not in my closet, duh."  
  
"And so obviously if they're not in your closet, they must be in mine? Which pair is it?"  
  
"My blue Gianni Benes...the heels?" she told him, still looking. Tristan just laughed, and received a glare from the treasure-hunting Rory. "What, might I ask, is so funny?"  
  
"You and your mother had a ten hour fight the last time they were up here. Which, might I tell," he mocked, "ended with you drinking coffee and her taking the shoes home," Tristan offered as the explanation. Rory, momentarily stumped, just stood there.  
  
"Oh, really? Well, then, I'll finish packing and we'll be on our way in ten. Stupid shoes," she muttered as she started in on the heaps of clothing she had set out.  
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"This is all your fault," Tristan said, coming up to the door. Rory hopped out of his Aston Martin and followed.   
  
"How is this my fault?"  
  
"We're late," he told her obviously, rolling his eyes. Rory crossed her arms and pouted.  
  
"Well, how about we be a little later?" she said, changing her tune and wrapping her arms around him. Tristan smiled against her mouth, breathing her in, before taking her lips beneath his. Rory moaned happily and pulled him closer, twining her arms around his neck and rubbing gently against his hips. Tristan's tongue delved quickly into the velvet recesses of her mouth, then out again, in, out, and Rory's heart beat an erratic cadence. She skimmed a hand through his hair, wrapping in the short tousled hair at the nape of his neck, and Tristan's hands softly brushed up and down her waist, gently molding the side of her breasts, and Rory's pulse jumped.   
  
"I love you, Rory," Tristan said against her mouth, and Rory meshed their lips together again, fiercly wanting this time, before a light like a spotlight was shone on the two, and they jumped apart quickly.  
  
At the end of the drive they could see Lorelei and Luke drive up in the new Montero Lorelei had insisted they buy. Tristan grinned.  
  
"You know, babe, as long as they're late, we're not," he told her with a laugh.   
  
"You're very right," Rory smiled, knocking at the door. "Wow, it sounds like there are a lot of people in there! Who else is here for dinner?" she wondered outloud as her grandmother opened the door.  
  
"Rory! Tristan!" she welcomed, hugging them both as she ushered the couple inside. "And there's your mother...I'll wait for her. Rory, your grandfather is in the library. He'd like to see you," she said with a smile.  
  
"Okay," Rory said, taking Tristan by the hand and heading toward the closed doors of the library. "Grandpa?" she asked, turning the handle. But it wasn't just Richard in the library. All around the room were Rory and Tristan's friends from school, Boston, everywhere. Lane and Henry were smiling like the newlyweds they were over a petty argument, Paris and Jess were flipping back and forth in their fiery love-hate relationship as fast as if they were channel surfing. Janlan DuGrey was there, having a drink with Richard, Lucy, as well as many of their other employees, were scattered in the room among college friends and business contacts, Mira and her Jackson, Sookie and hers, and Tristan's parents, too. Emily Gilmore entered with Lorelei and Luke in tow and quietly closed the door as Tristan came out from behind Rory and everyone in the room fell silent.   
  
Rory could hardly fight through confusion until she saw Tristan go down on one knee before her, and she gasped. "Rory Gilmore, I have loved you since the moment I set eyes on you, when you were beautiful and smart and I was stupid and foolish. I loved you even when we were apart, when you were still beautiful and smart and I was working so hard just to be worthy of your presence. I loved you when we became business partners, when you were more amazing than ever and I was practically a teenager again, hoping for just the time of day. I loved you when you finally discovered you loved me too, and I love knowing that the only person I will ever love so much in this world is you...only ever you. Rory, I love you now and I will love you until the end of time. Will you marry me?" Tristan asked, his blue eyes sparkling with love brighter than the sparkle of the plain but beautiful...and rather large, oh my, thought Rory,...diamond ring he lifted toward her. With a tear, Rory stood stock still for a second, and Tristan's eyes dropped, but flew back open when she threw her arms around him tightly.  
  
"Yes, Tristan DuGrey, I will marry you. And I will love you forever," she told him, smiling, as he planted a wonderful kiss against her lips. Rory's hands framed his face and pulled him closer, reveling in his nearness and their new love when Lorelei gave a loud wolf whistle.  
  
"C'mon, you two, this is a family show!" she yelled, smiling, as she rushed up to hug Rory. Luke was shaking Tristan's hand, and then so was Richard, and Janlan, Henry, Jess, everyone in a long line, while many of women crowded around Rory's newly donned ring. Over the bent heads and the men's shoulders Rory and Tristan caught each others eyes and smiled.  
  
"I love you," they mouthed. "And I always will."  
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El Fin. Thank you all...very much!--Annest 


End file.
